Park Güell

Park Güell is a fairyland. Now a public park, but it has an interesting history. A count by the name of Eusebi Güell intended the land to be a housing development for the well-to-do folks who wanted to move away from the center of the city of Barcelona.  All well and good, but the needed stores and services were in Barcelona. It didn't appeal to people to move so far away (and uphill), so it failed as a housing area, but Güell continued his plan to turn it into a park/garden area for the public. Lucky for those of us who have had the pleasure of visiting!

This is the "model home" Güell had built, now a museum, which Gaudi and his family lived in for a few years, presumably while he was working on designing the park.

 Love these quirky columns

Our guide told us this is the only human figure in all of the art and architecture in the park. It is called La Bugadera (The Washerwoman), and was designed in honor of the women who washed the clothing of the many workers who constructed the park. Hmmm...
 

 Segment of iron gate on the park grounds

 

El Drac, the mosaic lizard, a famous symbol of the park. People were everywhere, so hard to get pictures without extraneous body parts included.

 

This beautiful wavy mosaic bench surrounds an open area of the park. 

More of the bench, and three self-takers. They were EVERYWHERE!! 

 

A favorite view

That's only a small sample of the fantasy and wonder of Park Güell. If you are interested in seeing great photos of more of what it has to offer, a Google search of images for the park will give you a real treat. 

La Sagrada Familia

La Sagrada Familia is the reason to go to Barcelona. It's the ultimate Gaudi experience, or as our tour guide Luisa said, it's where God and architecture intersect. She's right, whether one is a believer or not. It's referred to as a temple, a cathedral, a church, or a basilica depending on who is talking about it.

Outside and from a distance, La Sagrada Familia looks daunting. It IS daunting.

Closer up, it is an indescribable mixture of religious history, nature, fantasy, whimsy, and more. 

I loved the bird perching on the scroll, enjoying watching tourists take his photo.

It was started in 1882 and is expected to be finished in 2026. I won't elaborate, as I wouldn't know where to end in describing the cathedral or its background. Here's a 90 second video that projects the construction to its completion. Worth watching. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcDmloG3tXU. 

If you're curious for more information, you know how to use Google!  

Going inside the cathedral is yet another level of disbelief for the beauty and detail. I didn't get many photos, and these don't do justice to the unbelievable light, color, intricate detail, and variety of treats for the eye that we experienced.

I don't know why I didn't think to take a video that afternoon. I looked online for videos of interior shots of La Sagrada Familia, but none show the incredible light of the time we were there.  I tried to get a photo of the light coming through the golden, orange, and yellow stained glass that afternoon. You get a bit of an idea of how warm and fiery it was. Opposite this large window is one that is blues and purples, which catches the morning light, giving an entirely different feeling to the huge space. All I can say is that you truly "had to be there."

Quick tour of Barcelona

The first morning in Barcelona we went on a bus tour to get oriented to the city. Here are some sights we enjoyed seeing and learning about.

Rings sculpture near one of the main ports of Barcelona 

(designed for 1992 Olympics)

On Montjuich: figures dancing La Sardana, traditional circle dance of Cataluña

 1992 Summer Olympics Stadium and torch, also on Montjuich

 View of the Mediterranean Sea from Montjuich 

 

View of seaport and Barcelona over our shoulders. 

We're looking more than a bit jet-lagged!

 

Barcelona from Montuich. Templo de La Sagrada familia 

is visible with cranes hovering above it. 

 

Barcelona's Plaza de Toros Monumental (and that's no bull!)

From here we went to visit La Sagrada Familia, which deserves an entry of its own, so check back tomorrow!

December 8: Oh those crazy Catalonians

A tradition in Barcelona (and throughout the entire region of Cataluña) that we learned about at an outdoor Christmas market is the caga tió (poo log), a hollow 12 inch long log similar to these little guys.

Beginning December 8, the caga tió is given little bit to "eat" every night and is covered with a blanket so that he will not be cold. Children must take good care of the log so that it will poop presents on Christmas Day.

To make it poop, the kids beat the caga tió with sticks, while singing various traditional songs. Parents send the kids away to pray, and then sneak gifts under the blanket. There’s more to the story, but it’s enough for me to manage the idea of a log pooping presents.

We saw booths throughout the market filled with tiny and huge logs. These delightful women, representing three generations of a family, told Janet and me the pooping log story. When we asked why some of their figures had pipes in their mouths, the oldest of the group told me accessories are often added “for the children”.  Ha ha! Now that I think of it, there's a lot of smoking in public places in Barcelona, so this must help the kids get into the habit!

The Christmas market is blocks long, and is located in front of the Cathedral of Barcelona. All sorts of festivities take place on the steps of the cathedral, including a gigantic caga tió, being beaten to a pulp by kids singing at the top of their lungs. Sorry I couldn't get a better angle on the action (for fear of being whacked with a stick), but there's the smiling caga tió!

Another vendor that captured our attention was this woman, whose papier-mâché puppets were so much fun to see. She loved telling us about them, of course.

The Cathedral of Barcelona 

Our guide told us that it isn't only pooping logs that represent the scatological fixation of Catalonians during the Christmas season. Another--the caganer-- is something so weird I can't even imagine how it got a start. The caganer is a figure, often in traditional dress (see poster below) that is added to a family's manger scene somewhere off to the side, not near the manger or the baby Jesus. The caganer has many stories attached to it, including that its purpose is to fertilize the ground of the nativity scene. There are many deep and philosophical treatises written about other meanings for including this fellow in the Nativity.

 

Unfortunately, the shop wasn't open when we were in the neighborhood. If so, we could've found the perfect caganer for everyone we are related to (Evan).  I strongly suggest you click on this link to see the kinds of figures Catalonians add to their manger scenes. Queen of England pooping, anyone??

We were very lucky to be in Barcelona on the first day of the market. It was busy with locals looking for holiday decorations and crafts,  and of course we were there, taking it all in. People were accommodating of my limited ability to speak Spanish, although it wasn't too difficult understanding most of what I heard. It's been well over 25 years since I taught it or had to use it in any significant way. Where are Vivi and Hannah when I need them?!

Starting out in Barcelona

The notes and pictures I'm posting over the next few days are bits and pieces of our trip, especially the Barcelona stay. 

On our first afternoon in Barcelona, we had a few hours to rest and wander. I'm always afraid of getting lost until I've oriented myself to a new place, even with a map right in front of me. Thank goodness Larry/Dad/Gpappy has a sense of direction that is better than mine!  

While on a stroll in the immediate neighborhood, which was full of shops and restaurants, we learned right away that the blocks do not have right angle corners as one would expect. Instead, they are octagonal. The district is called Eixample, which means "extension" in the Catalan language. It was built after the wall surrounding the old city of Barcelona was torn down. Here's an aerial view that shows the shape of the blocks. I didn't take this picture, obviously!

I was startled to see Black Friday sales signs in front of many stores, including this Sony store. Black Friday in España?? What?? A few days later, a family from Barcelona who spoke to our group told us that this was the first ever Black Friday sale in Spain and that it was a big hit. Barcelonans had no idea why it was called Black Friday, but a sale is a sale in any language.

There are yellow ambulancias everywhere, it seems. Thank goodness Larry didn't have to ride in one, but it was oddly prophetic to see so many of them the first afternoon in the city! Notice the motorcycles. There are thousands of them in Barcelona. The riders are speed demons, weaving in and out of tight city traffic.

In the district where we were staying, the sidewalks are paved with these honeycombed tiles designed by Antoni Gaudi. I've always been fascinated by the art and architecture of Gaudi, but I'm over the top after seeing so much of his work. These tiles are everywhere. The originals were made for the floors of one of the homes Gaudi designed, and we got to see those as well.

Casa Mila, also called La Pedrera (the rock quarry, because of its appearance), was designed by Gaudi.  A fantastic building, inside and out. More pictures in a future blog entry. Or, if you do an image search of Casa Mila/Barcelona on Google, you'll find amazing photos from every angle. Those strings of lights that look like basketball hoops are holiday lights.

This building, designed by a Japanese archictect who was a student of Gaudi's work, is located very close to La Pedrera. Beautiful both day and night, and a delightful comparison of styles.

And my favorite of all...

Casa Batlló at night--this is the most wonderful, magical building in the area where we were staying.  In 1904, Gaudi restored a conventional home built in 1877, with this as the result. The large window on the first level was where the family who owned the home would entertain guests to show off their style and wealth. Residents of Barcelona would come by to watch them eat dinner and enjoy their evening. Reality TV of the early 1900's!

 

Closer view of the front picture window

The first evening we were in Barcelona, our guide Luisa took us on a walking tour to see these buildings and much more before dinner in a neighborhood restaurant. Just like cities in the U.S., Barcelona was getting ready for Christmas, and there were shoppers everywhere until late in the evening. A wonderful way to be introduced to Spain!

All's well that ends well

-->

Where to begin about our trip to Barcelona and Madrid? Maybe at the end… which came a few days before we planned.

Larry is fine now, but spending 12 hours in a hospital in Spain was not on the original itinerary. I won’t bore anyone who reads this with too many details, but after  several nights of no sleep, dehydration, loss of appetite, Larry/Dad/Gpappy decided he had to get checked out by a doctor. In this case, at an urgent care facility in a hospital in Madrid. 

Diagnosis was hyponatremia, or abnormally low sodium in the blood. It can lead to all sorts of problems,  but we didn’t know that, so after a slow (8 hour) IV infusion that only brought up the sodium level a few points leaving it still well below normal, we asked for Larry to be discharged rather than to be admitted to the hospital for more tests, figuring we could do that at home. Well, home was several days off yet, so we made arrangements to return to the U.S. the next day. A non-emergency trip to the emergency room for follow-up when we got back showed that  the sodium level much better, and is approaching normal again. Instructions are to increase salt intake slightly (Larry has never been told that before!), keep fluid intake lower than normal, and see his doctor on Monday. Huge relief for us that it didn’t get more serious and that we made it home without Larry getting sicker. 

I'll leave out the details of being in a hospital where it's hard to communicate because of language differences, following up with the hospital business office via fax, explaining to BCBS that, yes, the discharge information is in Spanish and billing details will be as well, etc.  However, we had a unique experience on this trip that no one else in our group had. While they were having tapas and watching a flamenco performance, we were getting medical assistance in a Madrid hospital! It's a story to tell.

Now that the bad part is out of the way, we are beginning to get over jet lag and the stress is slowly disappearing.

Despite the difficulties at the end of the trip, Larry we really did have a wonderful time. We loved Barcelona (especially), and there are lots of good stories to tell about it. I’ll post something more cheerful tomorrow and the next day!

P.S.  Annie suggested this:

Plenty of sodium now!

You're 35? How can that be true?

Then...

 ...and now!

Happy Birthday, Annie. 

We love you lots and lots!