I took a trip to Barcelona by myself one weekend, and it was basically the best trip ever. After getting to my hostel, which was ridiculously cheap AND in a good location, I went on a free walking tour. I met another girl who was traveling alone to Barcelona from Germany on the tour, and we just kind of hit it off and spent the weekend together.
Our first stop on the trip was to a really cool plaza with a little market that had all sorts of trinkets.
It was also home to Gaudi's first (and last) work he ever did for the city of Barcelona, these lamp posts. He was commissioned by the city to make them straight out of school, so he did. However, the city didn't pay him what he should've gotten for them, so he sued. And he won. Later though, he swore that he would never work on any project for the city ever again. From then on, all he took was private commissions.
One stop on the tour was this sculpture. If you're familiar with George Orwell, this is him. Well, sort of. Orwell was in Barcelona documenting the civil war, and he felt so connected to the people that he decided to fight beside them. He ended up getting shot in the neck, but he still lived. The city put this statue here to honor his courage. Unfortunately, the area became a sketchy part of the city, run down with drugs and violence. Then the city decided to put a playground next to it with a bunch of security cameras. This got rid of most of the crime, however, Orwell probably wouldn't be too happy about all the surveillance.
On this street, we saw where Picasso went to art school as a young boy. Note the space invader to the right.
Pablo's dad, who was also an artist, noticed how talented his little boy was when Pablo broke into his studio and finished a drawing he was working on. So Papa Picasso put his own art on hold in order to develop his son's work. They moved to Barcelona so Pablo could study in the best school.
He lived in the apartment right next to his school so he could really focus. Pablo was actually too young to go to the school, but the directors saw his work and couldn't refuse him
Barcelona in itself is a work of art. Walking through any street, you'll see beautiful street art and other graffiti. This was one of my favorites.
The Romans occupied Barcelona once upon a time, but then they got attacked by the Visigoths. The Romans built this fort in 30 days to try to keep them out. They basically just pulled out any rock they could find to throw this baby together, even tombstones. Then the Visigoths got there, and the Romans were like "No, don't kill us!" And the Visigoths were like "Ok, we don't feel like fighting anymore anyway," so they all got along and coexisted. Yay.
We went to the People's Church of Barcelona. Our guide said that the people of Barcelona just wanted to build a church, so they made this one in only 60 years! Which is nothing compared to the 600 that the Cathedral took to build.
Next to the church is this eternal flame which burns over a mass grave of those who died fighting for Barcelona against Spain in the 1700s.
The spanish government building in the main plaza. Across from it is Barcelona's city government, and to the left of the building is a huge bookshop. There's some story I don't really remember that well with St. George and flowers and books and a dragon eating little childen, so around Valentine's day women buy men books, and men buy the women flowers. Most book sales happen around this time.
St. Eulalia is a really important saint in Barcelona (and the only person buried in Barcelona's Cathedral). When the Romans were killing all the Christians, they got a hold of this little 13 year-old christian girl, Eulalia. They tortured her for thirteen days with thirteen types of torture. She was crucified, stuck in a barrel with glass and nasty stuff and rolled down a hill (this one, where we were standing above), had her breasts chopped off, and other things. Finally they decapitated her. When she died, a dove flew from her, which was supposed to be her soul.
We then visited this neighborhood, which was where the jews lived. When the christians were going around killing the jews or picking out the "new christians" to accuse as jews and kill, they would go around and offer ham to everyone, and only jews and muslims would refuse. Then they got kicked out as usual. That's a theory for why ham is so popular in Spain now. You had to eat ham to prove you weren't jewish. This plaza was also a place of attack when Franco was heading the government. He wanted to bomb people that didn't support him, but he messed up the coordinates and bombed a preschool, killing a ton of children.
On our tour, we went to Isabel and Fernando's little patio in Barcelona.
This was their residence, I think? There's a museum in this plaza, too, with a bunch of old documents of Cristobal Colón. We also learned that Isabel and Columbus probably had an affair. When Columbus first asked the royal couple for funding to go find what he thought would be Asia, they said no. Then Columbus and Isabel started messing around together, and the king was finally like, "Ok, go to America, just get off my wife." So Columbus went and discovered America. He came back though and later died of syphilis. Isabel also died of syphilis.
We also learned a bit about why Barcelona is such a popular tourist destination. It hosted a world fair and the Olympic games, so the city took some time to really do the city up. They put in a manmade beach that still gets tons of sand shipped in from Egypt every year to keep it up so that way the Olympic Game viewers would have some nice place to relax, and they also put a bunch of cool projects up for the fair. There was this one architect that presented this idea of a really cool tower to the city, but the city was like "Meh, we don't want your tower, go away," so this architect then took his tower plans to Paris for the next world fair. Paris took the tower plans and built the tower. This guy's name was Gustave Eiffel, by the way. Could you imagine the Eiffel tower in Barcelona? Well, it almost happened.
After getting some patata's bravas (which are supposed to be spicy but really aren't at all) after the tour, my friend and I wandered around the city. Every street in Barcelona is incredible, and every restaurant you look in will have a really cool interior. The whole city just has such a creative atmosphere.
I also went to Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's unfinished cathedral. It's incredible in every way and is worth the two hours you might wait in line to get in. Bring your student card if you have one to get entrance reduced from 20 to 11.50 euro.
One side of the cathedral based on the roots of trees. Gaudi based his architecture on nature, and the results are glorious.
It's a magical forest land of everything pretty and trippy at the same time.
Inspired by trees, bee hives, and fungi.
This place was just magical from every angle. The light would shine in and color everything it touched. It's like you were a canvas for a watercolor painting.
The crypts you could see down below.
There were parts of the Cathedral that were like a museum. This one room showed all of the things in nature that inspired Gaudi's unique designs.
This façade of the church reminded me of kale. It's just so much detail at once. I felt like I took the red pill or something and was in a different reality.
More amazing street art I saw in the city climbing up to Park Güell.
Literally the week before I came to Barcelona, the city decided to start charging to enter the Park. I didn't have eight euro to spend, so I just enjoyed the park's main features from afar. I still got to walk around the park and see Gaudi's other cool stuff, though.
After the Park, I hunted down Gaudi's famous residences, which are so cool. The guy was a genius.
I went to the Cathedral in the Gothic part of the city, and there was free entrance when I went (after 5). The cathedral is really cool on the inside, and you get to see where Eulalia is buried.
At night, I went to the market. They have anything you could imagine, including this one stand that had nuts, dried fruits, chocolate, and my favorite, marzipan. Look how cute they all are!
There's also a magic fountain by Mont Juic (which I sadly didn't get to climb). The magic is all the lights and variations of water. The music, too.
The day I had to leave, I got up early and saw Gaudi's Palau Güell. It was sunday, so entrance was free. Gaudi designed the palace for Eusebi Güell, his main commissioner and friend. The daughter later gave the palace to the city with the condition that they preserve it. The inside is as incredible and modern as the outside. There are a bunch of stained glass windows on the inside, too, with images of the characters from Shakespeare's works.
My friend and I went to the port after the palace, and on the way we saw this Columbus statue.
There was also a cute market.
The bridge that goes by the aquarium is really cool, too. It rotates to let the boats pass. It was actually pretty freaky when it started to do the warning alarm when we were on it. We started panicking and ran all the way across. We were panicking for no reason of course.
Although I did so much in one weekend, I feel like I needed a whole week in Barcelona. There were so many things I didn't see, but I guess that's just an excuse to go back...
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