Visitors in Barcelona

For the last week or so of our stay in Barcelona, we had visitors -- my sister Jess and her family.

My little nephew is not quite a year old, but Barcelona is so kid-friendly, we found lots of stuff to do.

The aquarium:

He really loved the eels!

The playgrounds in the Parc de la Ciutadella:

The zoo:

The cutest monkey at the zoo!

And chasing pigeons in the Placa Reial:

And now, unfortunately, our time here has come to an end.  Barcelona has been such a fun city to live and work in -- we've enjoyed meeting the friendly people, learning about the fascinating history and experiencing the nightlife.  We will miss our little corner of the city in the Placa del Pi.

The Sagrada Familia

We've been here for many weeks and still had yet to set foot inside the Sagrada Familia.  I had been putting it off because I was intimidated by the long lines to buy tickets.  But I needn't have worried; the website allows you to book in advance (you have to select an arrival time) and we didn't even need to have a paper printout - we could just use our phone to display the admission tickets.  And the advance tickets get to skip the line and go right inside, which was awesome.  We showed up at 11:50 (a little early) and walked right in at noon.

The basilica has been under construction since 1882 and is not expected to be completed until sometime in 2026.  Antoni Gaudi began working on the design in 1883 - he took over from a more "traditional" architect and radically changed the design of the church to be more in line with the modernist aesthetic.

Kevin came to Barcelona in 1996 and at that time, it was only possible to see the exterior of the church and go up in the towers, but the interior of the church was not yet finished enough to allow visitors.  Eventually, the Sagrada Familia will have three exterior facades: the Nativity, the Passion, and the Glory.  The Glory facade is still under construction, but the other two have been completed.

The Nativity facade looks like it's melting.  The reliefs and sculptures on the facade tell the story of the birth of Jesus.

The Passion facade is more futuristic and angular.  It depicts the crucifixion and has a very distinctive angled portico.

Passion facade and detail of the crucifixion scene

The facades are impressive however, as someone who loves stained glass, the interior was the best part.  On the outside the cathedral seems gothic and heavy, whereas inside the light comes from everywhere and the ceilings seem to reach up to the sky.

Columns mimic tree trunks and branches

Stained glass fills the interior space with a rainbow of colors

It is somewhat difficult to get a good perspective of the basilica just from photos, so Kevin took this photosphere to show all the details inside (you can click anywhere inside the photo to scroll to see a 360-degree view):

Views: Barcelona, Spain by Kevin Salt

As I mentioned, construction is ongoing; workers were busy both inside and out.  Unfortunately, Gaudi only saw the completion of the Nativity facade and the crypt before his untimely death in a traffic accident.  The construction suffered another setback when most of Gaudi's models and diagrams were ransacked and destroyed during the Spanish Civil War.  Since that time, researchers have been continuously piecing together his models and plans to help complete the project in the spirit of the original design.

Bust of Gaudi in the basilica's museum

Hopefully someday we will be able to return to Barcelona and see the finished work!

Oktoberfest, Barcelona-style!

Prost!

Although a local friend had warned us it might be a little lame, we decided to check out Barcelona's version of Oktoberfest anyway.  Having never been to the one in Germany, we figured that it would probably be very similar to the Oktoberfests back in Arizona, where it's pretty much just an excuse to hoist heavy mugs of beer and sway along to the oompah music.

The banner says something like "Long live the authentic spirit of Oktoberfest"

They did get some things right, such as the servers having to carry ridiculously-sized steins of beer.

Other things were not so "authentic", such as the fact that the oompah band lacked a tuba, which in my opinion is the key component to any good oompah band.  (Let's see: accordian...check, upright bass...check, clairinet...okay, flute -- wait, what?!)  There were halfhearted efforts from the crowd to stand on the tables and sing along with some of the German songs, but during most of the band's numbers everyone just sat calmly sipping their beer.

A few Oktoberfest diehards

Things got a lot livelier when the DJ came on and played a kind of techno version of Que Sera Sera.  Everyone and their grandma jumped up and got their groove on.  Definitely Oktoberfest with a Barcelona flair.

Tibidabo Amusement Park

Despite not having kids of our own, we love amusement parks.  Maybe that's because we are both still kids at heart.

Over the weekend, we took a bus up to the Tibidabo amusement park which is at the top of a mountain in the Serra de Collserola, which overlooks the city of Barcelona.  While it's no Disneyland (or even Park Asterix for that matter), we still found plenty to keep us entertained for the afternoon.

Tibidabo has five levels of fun!

Just next to the park is a beautiful church, the Sagrat Cor.  We had a great view of it from one of the rides.

My favorite ride was the Muntanya Russa, a fast-moving rollercoaster.

Kevin prefers the more relaxing pace of the ferris wheel.  We timed our ferris wheel ride for sunset hoping for some awesome photos, but it was kind of smoggy.  Still pretty, though.

Views from Montjuic

Just to the south of Barcelona is a hilly area known as Montjuic.  We've been up that way several times, but never gone to the fortress at the top of the hill.  We had hoped to take the funicular train part of the way but it is currently closed for repair, so we hoofed it halfway up instead and then hopped on the Montjuic teleferic (gondola lift) to the top.

On the ride up, we had a nice view of the Sagrada Familia - still under construction.

The Castell de Montjuic itself was just okay.  We've seen a lot of forts in our time...I think we might still be "forted-out" from our time in the Caribbean, where every island has at least one fort.  However the views from the walls were still very nice, and there was a pleasant breeze as well (it's still kind of warm here; we're hoping it cools down before we have to leave!).

Afterwards we walked back downhill a little ways, passing this cool statue of the Sardana, a traditional Catalonian dance.

The statue makes it look a little bit like the children's game "ring around a rosy", but it's actually a complicated dance with various steps and some jumping/hopping involved.  There are often large gatherings of traditional music and sardana dancing in the summertime, and anyone can join in if you can follow the steps.  You can tell the more serious dancers because they usually wear special shoes - here's a photo I took a few weeks ago in the Placa de la Catedral:

Okay, back to our Montjuic walk...  Downhill from the fortress is the Port Vell Tramway, which actually takes you from the hill all the way to the old port.  Along the way you get a true bird's-eye view of the city.

And here's a quick video of the last minute or so of the tram ride:

Sitges, Spain

The popular seaside town of Sitges is one of the easiest daytrips to take from Barcelona - hop on a Rodalies train from the station in Passeig de Gracia (or Sants) and you can be there in less than an hour.  It's a pretty town that is compact and mostly pedestrianized, so it's very easy to get around after leaving the train station.

Since the weather was so nice today we decided to have a stroll through the town to see some of the sights before heading to the beach to relax.  The Palau de Maricel was built in the early 1900's by American millionaire Charles Deering, who stored his massive art collection here until moving back to the US.  Now the palace is an events hall, and its rooftop offers spectacular views of the Mediterranean Sea.  (We did not get to go inside, so no sea views for us!)

The church of Sant Bartomeu & Santa Tecla is an iconic landmark in Sitges - it sits high on a hill that overlooks both the sea and the town.

What we love most about Sitges are the great clothing and art boutiques and trendy cafes where you can just sit and enjoy the sea breeze.  One street was decorated with weird multi-eyed spiders in honor of the town's upcoming Film Festival - this year's theme is horror or fantastic films, I think.  Just in time for Halloween...spooky!

They are even scarier when one of them falls down right in the middle of the street.  Luckily it didn't land on anyone!