La Sagrada Familiar and Not A Lot Else, 28th of May

Alex informed us all over breakfast that today was a holiday in Barcelona (not Spain, just Barcelona). Complete with a Barcelona running race right on our street! 

We weren't concerned that this would upset our plans as we had booked our tickets to the La Sagrada Familiar online as suggested the day before. So after brekkie without mucking about (our time to arrive was booked between 10am and 11am) we wandered over. The queue at 10am was already a few kilometres long (I may exaggerate somewhat) so we were pretty chuffed to walk straight in. Didn't really know what to expect except that it was a Gaudi creation and it was a Basilica (Greg didn't even realise that much). 

So... we were pretty wowed by the entire thing! It's like Dr. Seuss meets disney meets the Vatican but at the same time it's own unique creation. If I was ever going to call a building a piece of art, this was it. Greg was impressed by Gaudi's ability to employ both creative architecture and intelligent structural principles, and could have spent a lot longer in the museum at the end than I. We spent 3 and a half hours there. The two completed facades, one telling the story of the Passion and one of the Nativity, are simply amazing, and the interior... Well anyway here are some photos. The dang thing is still only 60% complete which is just crazy.

You enter via the 'Passion Facade' which means you go in about an hour after you arrive because it takes that long to examine every aspect of the facade first! Beautifully simple sculpture.

  

The betrayal.

Peter renouncing Jesus three times. Spot the rooster.

The 'Gethsemane Gate'

Pilate washing his hands.

Finally inside, about to get a very sore neck from gazing up in awe...

The columns holding it up were modelled off of trees, complete with knots, branches, and leaves.

The golden triangle right at the top above the alter symbolises the Holy Trinity - symbology was everywhere. Gaudi apparently wanted the place to be like a living prayer.

The ceiling.

The organ with lights from the stained glass windows reflecting off.

The windows were so beautiful and were like rainbows - my favourite!

Spiral staircase looking very much like something out of a disney movie, or perhaps Fantasia from the Never Ending Story. Somehow managed not to look tacky...

What will eventually be the main door below the unfinished 'Glory' Facade, with the Lord's Prayer written in either Spanish or Latin in the stand out lettering (I forget, and if I was smarter I could tell by looking...) 

The writing covering the rest of the door is the words "Give us this day our daily bread" in a multitude of different languages. Spot the English! 

 

The Nativity façade on the other side of the other non-main entrance. Equally as intricate and amazing as the Passion façade but due to it's intricacies more difficult to photograph so I've only put one of mine up here. (Plus too many photos already)

Then we paid a couple of euro to ride the lift up into the towers. 

The bonus of taking a photo of another bunch of people for them, is that often they'll then take one of Greg and I together!

This was a scary place to stand!

The view of Barcelona. Not too shabby.

Gaudi Park, opposite the Nativity entrance.

Greg standing in another scary place!

The windy staircase to get down again.

At the bottom, looking back up the windy staircase.

The view of the outside from another angle.

Inside the partially completed cloister.

Picture from inside the museum showing how much is finished and what is still to come over what time scale. It's only 60% done so far!!

Gaudi built a schoolhouse beside the Basilica for the children of the workers etc. 

As we left, the Nativity facade from across the street.

The most mental building I have ever seen. More impressive even than the Vatican I think. But that could be observer bias.

By the time we got back to base at around two pm we were pretty much beat. We'd had grand plans to visit the Gaudi park or the park with the olympic stuff, museums and a hill with good views of the city (and a magic fountain at night) but we honestly couldn't be stuffed! We had found a laundromat in a Placa nearby which had good eateries too and we were in desparate need of laundry (which was summed up amusingly that morning when I had got dressed and announced “last pair of undies” to which Greg replied “same pair of undies”). We also needed to validate the railpass before we used it the next day and I was paranoid that the train station we were leaving from wouldn't be big enough to validate it for some reason.

So we missioned over to the Placa, figured out how the laundromat worked (first time at a laundromat!) and got the washing going. Then we found a 'Piadina' place for lunch which was a flat bread with pizze toppings folded in half – this was cheap and yummy and we got iced tea also. The washing was done so we chucked it in the dryer and then got some icecream. 

While we were standing outside the laundromat I found a great way to pass myself off as being Spanish even when spoken to... there was a lady inside with a large load of laundry and she clearly wanted one of the large machines (there were only two) because it's cheaper. One was about to finish and then it finished and the person hadn't shown up to clear their stuff out so she was a bit stuck. When she saw us hanging around outside eating icecream she popper her head out the door and went “blablablainSpanishblablabla”. Having already observed what was going on I knew exactly what she was asking and my spoonful of ice-cream was conveniently in my mouth at the time. So I shook my head, made a negative noise, and pointed at the dryer we were using at the time. She nodded and said something else then went back inside. Successful 'conversation' in which my foreignness was not immediately obvious hurrah!

After 20 minutes laundry still not quite dry so back at home we improvised - cheers to Mike and Maria for the fabulous travel washing line!

Laundry achieved we dropped it off then went on a Metro Adventure to get the ticket vaidated and work out where we were going to have to go the next morning to catch our train to France. Apart from being hopelessly foreign and useless at the information desk at the station, we succeeded in our mission and then toodled off home (and when I say toodled I mean, took the metro, alighted in a random place, got lost, had to use the GPS to get back to where we were staying...)

We got back hot and tired after 5pm. The Aussie couple were back too and in a similar state. The lady (Melanie) got talking to us and then we chatted for over an hour about heaps of stuff. She was crazy easy to talk to! When it got late enough (the Spanish don't really have tea until 9pm) she invited us to come out to dinner with her and Mike. We consented and had a fabulous dinner out, actually in a Spanish restaurant with an amusing waitress (who I quietly suspected may have once been a man). When she brought out the wrong food on multiple occasions Mike almost killed himself remembering the faulty towers quote “don't worry, she's from Barcelona!”. With the help of the other couple, who had been in Spain for over a week and had a better handle on Spanish/How the whole Spanish Thing Works, we got an assortment of 'tapas' for tea. Mike was in IT and him and Greg chatted easily about all things computers while Melanie and I shared travel stories. They were from Sydney and just very nice people. What a great evening! 

Tuna salad and free bread things. Free bread abounds in this part of the word it seems (Turkey too)

They took a photo of us and I remembered to photograph the food, but after drinking that sangria I forgot to get one of Mike and Melanie!!

Grilled mushrooms and saucy chicken wings. Not pictured here but also consumed was a spanish omelette, croquettes, and patatas in a rather spicy sauce.

OMG cheesecake yumyum

The custard thing was a local specialty (But it just wasn't cheesecake).

I had a very yummy Sangria and was a little tipsy on the way home to the amusement of everyone else (“Toin coss” was the most winning thing I said I think...). 

Then it was off to hit the sack for an early start in the morning to catch the train to France!!

The Day We Did All the Free Things: Barcelona 27th May

This day was fairly epic! Breakfast was lovely and we met an Israeli couple we were sharing the B+B with us. Today the plan was simply to explore the old city and maybe check out the Picasso museum. To be honest we really didn't have clue what we were doing!

We went down to Catalunya Square and took a few pics. On the way we spotted some interesting looking buildings. The strangest one, which seemed to be scaled like a rainbow fish, Greg announced that it looked really "Gaudy". I had been reading up on Barcelona and I was like, oh, how did you know that that was by the architect Gaudi? So pretty easy to see where the word Gaudy comes from...

In front of the fountain at La Placa Cataluna

Then we thought we were heading down towards Las Ramblas (famous street) but after going down a nice street with expensive shops on it we found ourselves in a square with oh! An enormous beautiful gothic cathedral. Which of course turned out to be the main Barcelona Cathedral. 

I thought we were heading towards Las Ramblas but couldn't understand why we weren't there yet...

Then huh! This old thing appeared around the corner!

Outside a brass band played and a bunch of oldies were dancing in a circle holding hands. It was Sunday morning we realised. We wandered up to and of course being a church it was free to get in and Mass was in progress. Walked in and just wow! The choir singing was absolutely beautiful and the tourists were subdued out of respect for the service that was going on. It meant that we couldn't wander right around the whole church but we didn't really care. It just felt so right to be at a church on Sunday morning. There was a beautiful chapel off to the right for the use of prayer so in we went. All in all a bit unexpectedly emotional!

Inside the Cathedral.

When we eventually emerged back out into the bright sunlight an hour had passed. Now that we had our bearings from the Cathedral we figured out that we'd taken the wrong exit from the Placa de Cataluna. So we back tracked and this time actually went down Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas was worth a walk, but the stalls didn't interest me too much and it was basically full of tourists and hawkers. The People Standing Still were pretty amusing.. but mostly we were uncomfortable in the crowd after the reports about pick pockets and purse snatchers so it was almost a relief to get to the end.

Coming down actual Las Ramblas

The Christopher Columbus memorial was pretty cool and a walk down the waterfront had me comparing the place to Wellington.

Looking down one of the waterfront boulevards - going as far as the eye can see...

Intriguing modern sculpture abounded.

We decided to get to the Picasso museum next since we knew it was something we wanted to see. So we walked back into the old city – which was a bit of a rabbit warren and we kept getting turned around! On the way we found ourselves in another surprise cathedral!

A typical street in the old town.

Surprise! It's a Cathedral! #2

 But we found it eventually, with just a handful of people queuing up. By this time (it was after 1pm) we were getting a bit hangry and we figured we wouldn't last through the museum without lunch. So we found a place with a 'menu' (set entree, main and drink for a set price) and had some yummies. Over lunch I read the guidebook and discovered that the Picasso museum (and many others) were free after 3pm. It was already 2pm by the time we finished lunch so we decided to wait until it was free! So we headed over to a nearby park which was quite lovely and had a wee walked around and a rest. Don't ever underestimate how much the hot sun can sap your energy!!

Pretty park with apparently free Wifi hotspots!

Random old building in the park.

The Happy Trekkers

Closer to 3pm we wandered back to the museum. Hmm looked like everyone else in Spain had had the same idea as us! The queue was now ALL the way down the long street and not moving very fast. We reasoned that it was probably that long because it has only just gone 3pm. So we decided to head over the Barcelona History museum (also free) and come back a bit later. The history museum proved quite tricky to find for some reason but when we finally did we could walk straight in. It was kind of interesting – it was built inside an old castle and underneath they had excavated a bunch of Roman ruins which you walk though and take a look. Which probably would have been really amazing, but still after Ephesus we remained 'ruined' for ruins. So we breezed through pretty quickly, enjoying the coolness of being underground. On the way out you could look in the restored castle chapel and that was pretty nice.

An example of an oldish building in Barcelona. Photo taken as we searched for the dang history museum.

Fresco in the museum from Roman days.

Ugly old head.

The whole museum was cleverly built inside the old ?castle? (a lot of the details were in Spanish)

Holes in the ground were the large jars of stuff used to be.

Castle chapel. Very pretty and bit Spanish Medievil-esque

Crazy artwork over the alter.

Post the museum we looked at the map and the only thing we wanted to do around the old city now was the Picasso museum. So we resolved to by some gelato and wait in the line however long it took. Gelato was good. The line took an hour. 

Everyone in Barcelona liked the idea of a free Picasso museum...

The museum was really interesting. It mainly focusses on his early work with a smaller selection of actual 'Picasso-esque' paintings from his later years. Greg was interested while the paintings looked like their subjects but once they got all Picassoey he was confused I think. In hindsight we should have got the audioguides (because it's not like we paid anything else to get in...) so that we could have had some intelligent commentary, because my explanations as to why it was important and talented wasn't good enough for Greg... but as for me I really loved the visit!

We were fairly done in by then and it was close to 7pm (!) so we jumped on the metro to get back to the hotel. We rested up, drank some water, met the other people staying at the B+B, a nice Aussie couple (from Syndey).

Then we headed out to dinner. We wandered around for a bit feeling quite lost (we hadn't got a handle on the Tapas thing yet). Found a restaurant recommended by the LP but it was chocka block full. Then we found another nice looking place, went inside, sat down... blimmin heck it was another Lebanese place! Luckily we like lebanese and this place was even better than the one the night before. We both got Mojitos which were delicious and rather potent. We were both quite sozzled on that one drink (after a long hot day in the sun such as we'd had), so when they poured us this delicious peach vodka will the bill I was despairing a little bit. But dang that stuff was nice so it was so worth the blargh feeling I had the next morning!

Mojito gives Greg happy anime eyes!

Food was GOOD

Tipsycam shot of the peach vodka. Dang that stuff was yummy.

Tipsycam self portrait of "Holy carp now I have to drink this too?"

Greg wasn't as broken as me so he made sure I got back to the B+B safely!

After this day, conclusions are: Barcelona is fabulous and I could live here. It's like all the good things about ChCh and Wellington (apart from the cool people, obviously) rolled into one but with better weather, and beaches! I'm sure I could get good at Spanish eventually.... The 30 hour plane ride to visit all of you lot would be little bit prohibitive I guess... but you could come visit me! Of course you would! I'd be living in Barcelona!

From Istanbul to Barcelona: 26th May

Getting from Turkey to Barcelona was a fairly unremarkable day. 

Highlights included: Seeing the sunrise and some beautiful views as we caught the bus to the airport at stupid o'clock:

...the little kitten that kept us company while we waited for the bus:

...and also me managing to order a coffee and understand how much it was at the Denizli airport, totally in Turkish. Was a good coffee too, but for 6 lira I should think so! 

Other highlights was finding a Turkish souvenir shop at the Istanbul airport so I was able to get a little Turkish tea light lamp to remind me of the bigger, pretty ones I liked so much, and also (most importantly) another last minute box of lokum! Yum yum! We copped out and had Burger King for lunch at Istanbul airport (but the options were that or similar). It was blimmin expensive!

Shame!

The flight went smoothly – after three flights with them we can't complain about Turkish airlines, they provide a good standard of service. 

The view from the plane coming into Barcelona

Arrived in Barcelona and successfully managed to find the right train (I had looked up how to get from the airport to our accommodation previously) 

Greg looking smug that we had made it to onto the right train so easily (I was also feeling quite smug).

From the station in town we made our way to our B+B without too much faffing. I'll say it again - hooray for cellphone GPS! 

Barcelona is hot! Especially when you're carting your bags four or five blocks!

The accommodation, Nisia B+B was fabulous. Just north of the old city (so close without being annoyingly and expensively in it) it's front door is just a little non-descript black iron gate between two shops on a main street. We buzzed for our room and “Hola?” came back at us. We were let in and clambered up four short, narrow flights of stairs with our stuff. Alex one of the managers appeared to help us. At the top we discovered the B&B to basically be a little Barcelona apartment with three bedrooms for guests, and a nice living area with couches, kitchen, dining table, TV, stereo and balcony. Alex and Carina the managers are a couple and they live a few floors up, appearing in the morning to prepare breakfast and clean, and to welcome new guests.

Alex gave us a map of Barcelona and marked the areas of interest out to us and told us how the B+B worked. He also recommended that we buy our tickets to popular places like the La Sagrada Familiar online in advance to avoid the queues and said we could print them out on his printer. Then he showed us our room and left us to it.

The only weird thing amongst an otherwise beautiful place was the mattress on the bed, which was extremely thin and hard. Otherwise the room + ensuite was lovely and since the owners don't hang around all the time it was basically like we were living in our own apartment in central Barcelona (in a flatting situation with other foreigners, obviously).

Mattress: Not a lot thicker than the pillow...

Kooky bathroom.

We went out for tea once we were settled. We were so tired! Trying to speak Spanish after so long tackling Turkish was a bit much so we found a restaurant with a picture menu which turned out to be Lebanese! The waiter had some english anyway, which turned out to be the case in most places.

Greg's beer had Essence of Down To Earth as it's aftertaste. Not that fab.

(Basically Lebanese meat pies with yoghurt. Not a lot of green stuff on the plate, but filled the gap for cheap!)

Overall the food was fine and the price was right. So it was home to crash, early on a Saturday night...