Park Guell- Friday, May 15th

Here is your history lesson about "Parc Guell" as written in our Barcelona guide book... "In 1910 the industrialist Eusebio Guell commissioned Gaudi to lay out a private housing estate on a hillside above Barcelona. The plan was to create a mini garden city with common amenities, leisure areas and decorative structures but only two of the houses were ever built. What was left after the project fell through, however, was one of the most original public spaces ever conceived. The layout is loosely based on the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delhi and Gaudi makes ingenious use of the contours to create arcades and viaducts all of natural stone. The most striking features of the park, however, are those covered with trencadis- mosaics made up of broken tiles- which are largely the work of the architect Josep Maria Jujol."




The Park strikes you even as you approach the outside walls already inlaid with the trencadis, and then as you enter the gates, you are flanked by two entrance pavilions in Gaudi's whimsical shape and covered in colorful mosaics. Quickly beyond that the park's signature dragon greets you from the center of the famous double staircase, and up you go through winding paths towards the square with the also famous serpentine bench. The park is full of undulating and naturally but intricately and creatively formed paths, viaducts, columns, and gardens. And unusual but colorful mosaics cover so many of the surfaces.





Once we got up to the square, I was surprised at the sheer amount of people enjoying the various areas, and more than that, was the incredible views of the city and the Mediterranean beyond. From lack of sleep and simple exhaustion, we almost didn't make the trek up the hill to the park, but we were so glad we did! It was more interesting and beautiful in person than we expected, and were pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoyed this wonderful area in Barcelona.





The quieter areas of the park were absolutely charming, it was fun to find a little guitarist under a column serenading whoever was lucky enough to come across him, among other fun little treasures.
















After that, we rode our Double Decker bus back to our Hotel... and on a recommendation from our Hotel clerk, we went to a restaurant called Cellar de Tapas for tradiational Spanish tapas and Paella. We ordered a variety of tapas (small dishes to share) to try, including some Paella that turned out to be good but not our favorite. A quick food note, was that the Paella was blackened with squid ink and served with shrimp, great except they serve the shrimps whole! In other words, we had to pull off the shrimp's heads, and they were way too "gooey" on the inside for my liking ;) But I followed dinner with the traditional Catalan dessert, Crema Catalana which is very similar to Creme Brulee, and Chris had a three chocolate dessert which looked very much to me like a Brownie with Chocolate Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce, but he swears it was amazing... the most interesting part of his dessert is that it was drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with Mediterranean sea salt. Which tasted better than it probably sounds ;)




But after dinner, we couldn't wait to get back to our Hotel and crash after being awake for about 36 hours, and having an exhilarating first day in Spain, and more specifically Barcelona.