Barcelona

Last weekend I went to Barcelona, Spain with one of the girls that lives in our apartment building. It was quite the adventure taking the bus from Florence to Pisa, flying to Girona, and then taking another bus to Barcelona. But we had such a wonderful weekend exploring Barcelona. When we arrived on Friday, we spent the day walking around taking in all the Spanish architecture:

These are just a few random buildings in Barcelona. They aren't particularly famous for anything, but I found it very cool that even some of the "everyday" buildings had such intricate and unique architecture.

This is the Barcelona Cathedral (also known as La Seu). It is an excellent example of Catalan Gothic architecture, with its graceful spires. I was thoroughly impressed with the intricacy of one of the doors.

The bull-fighting stadium.

Camp Nou Stadio- the athletic stadium.

Arc de Triomf, which sits at the end of this beautiful promenade.

Casa Batllo. The local name for it is Casa dels ossos (House of Bones), which is so fitting considering its skeletal look. The house was designed by Antoni Gaudi, the most well-known architect in Barcelona.

Later in the afternoon, we took the metro to go see the most famous building in Barcelona, the Sagrada Familia:

Some Spanish ceramic art of the Sagrada Familia.

The real Sagrada Familia. La Sagrada Familia was designed by the one and only Antoni Gaudi. Initially, the building was designed by architect Francesc de Paula Villar, who proposed a simple church in a traditional neo-Gothic style. Gaudi took over the project and completely changed the style to express his strong religious and nationalist feelings. He abandoned secular art and devoted himself to the project for 40 years, until his untimely death (he was run over by a tram). He is buried in the crypt of the La Sagrada Familia. Work on the project continued, but was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War in 1935. Construction began again in the 1950s, and has continued ever since. Progress is slow, but estimated completion dates range from 2017 to 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death.

We happened to be in Barcelona on the weekend of the La Merce festival, so we saw a few random, but cool things:

Some Spanish dancing.

Some entertainment in front of Town Hall. This is a stack of 7 people (you can't the bottom person). It was nerve-wracking to watch them pull off this stunt, but incredible. They would crawl up each others backs to the very top.

On Saturday, we went to see the Spanish Village. On the way we ran across the Palau Nacional:

They were getting ready for a concert, which slightly ruined the aesthetics of the picture, but how awesome would it be to go to a concert in front of a palace?

This is the first thing you see when you walk into the Spanish Village. The walls of this building almost look like wallpaper.

Two of the streets in the Spanish Village. It was so quaint and cute, Gina and I were instantly in love. We spent hours here, wandering in and out of unique shops with lots of ceramic artwork. We also had churros, which were absolutely delicious.

I even found another door I liked!

On our way back to our hostel, we wandered through all these little streets of Barcelona, looking at shops and markets and scoping out restaurants with good paella and sangria for dinner. One of the markets had a honey stand, with more kinds of honey than you could ever imagine:

We also found a shoe store that sold the same exact shoe in every color you could ever dream of:

A glimpse of heaven on earth.

Sunday was our pier/beach day. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and I realized that I am such a beach girl. Maybe I should have figured this out sooner, considering every weekend since I've been here I've made it to the beach. There is just something about coastline that is so exciting and soothing at the same time for me. Also, I know if I am near water, there is good seafood, which is my favorite food :)

The statue of Christopher Columbus located at the place where he returned to after his first voyage to the Americas.

The huge lobster statue down by the pier.

The fish statue, also down by the pier.

The professional volleyball game that we caught glimpses of on our way to the beach.

After a wonderful afternoon in the sun, we found a place to have seafood paella and sangria:

Seafood paella... incredible :)

Sangria on the beach.

Later that evening, we found a place to have churros dipped in chocolate:

Another glimpse of heaven on earth.

Overall, Barcelona was amazing. Another weekend at the beach, another weekend of amazing food, another weekend of adventure.

A Barcelona sunset.

I just spent my first weekend in Florence (aside from the first weekend we were here) and am uploading pictures so I can blog about that soon.

Ciao,

Sarah