Woke up early, early this morning, because I needed to be at Park Guell to start my tour at 7.45 so went to the café around the corner for breakfast then walked back to the hotel and got a taxi to the Park
café for breakfast (Still dark outside)
The Park is huge and as well known in Barcelona as Bourke Street Mall is known in Melbourne, so how come when I told the taxi driver I needed to be dropped at the main gate he dropped me at a side gate?? And while I'm asking the hard questions, how come the two people I asked at the gate if it was the main gate and showed them the address on my piece of paper they both said :Si, Si'?? Anyway, a nice girl took me to the right gate where my tour guide was waiting for me. I was ten minutes late by this time so very grateful that she waited.
There was only three of us in the tour so that was great and the guide stopped to allow us heaps of time to take photos and was very patient with me asking a gazillion questions.
I find Gaudi very interesting, he was an environmentalist before his time, a water conservationist, a recycler and a humanitarian amongst other things, who took care of people from all walks of life and even built a school for the children of the families who worked for him building the Sagrada Familia.
Speaking of schools, there is a school inside the Park, apparently for 'well to do' families, the kids were little so probably either a kindergarten or early primary school.
The school inside the Park Guell
The Park was designed as a resort for the rich of Europe to come to but it was a failure so it became a park for the people of the town. I wonder what Gaudi would think of his failure now and the people walking around looking up at the cathedral. Just amazing work. Check this out ... (I'm making the photos all as large as I can to see the detail)
Even the defibrillator at Park Guell was mosaic
After our tour of the Park we caught a taxi to the cathedral I'm glad I had walked around the outside yesterday and saw as much as I could. Today I stayed inside and tried to take it all in. It was absolutely breathtaking and it blew me away from the second I walked into the building. The light and the colours are amazing and the architecture in general just blew me away. Check these out ...
It looks like Batman but it's good ol' St.George overseeing everything and keeping it all safe
I manage to buy a ticket then asked a woman in a train station uniform which train to get, she told me even though she admitted "No Inglis". I found the platform she told me to go to (followed the crowd) and asked a woman standing there if it was the train I needed, "Si, Si" so I get on the train, we go two stops and I get off at the third - which is what everyone had told me to do. I ended up almost back where I had started and walking almost as far as I did yesterday.
Anyway ...
I found a piazza near the main church in the Gothic quarter with tables and chairs set up outside with a few locals sitting and chatting to the waiter - even though it's cold, people still sit outside. I'm one of the 'people' - I sat and ordered some lunch. The waiter spoke very rapid Spanish at me, I ordered a glass of wine and some patatas bravas, the waiter bought me my plate of deliciousness, said something about a wedgie and left me in peace. It was lovely sitting just checking it all out until about 12 women decided they were going to join the tables behind me together and sit and try to speak louder than each other and the accordion player walked around the tables playing jingle freaking bells.
There went the peace.
I ate my patatas, drank my vino and meandered my way back to the hotel, I have downloaded a squillion photos from today, am going to publish this blog then read through my stuff ready for my interview tomorrow. No idea how I'm going to do that!
No comments:
Post a Comment