Day Thirtyone - Jun 21, 2012
Barcelona, Spain
Daily Didactic
Today was a biggie. We may have set a personal best for both tourist attractions and walking. The day started earlyish for our 10:00 tour of the Palau de la Musica Catalana, a Barcelona concert hall famous as an example of the modernisme architectural movement of the early twentieth century. Modernisme is a big deal here and while Antoni Gaudi is king, this concert hall was not his. It was a quite a site and our tour guide Daniel did his best to bring us up to speed. After our modernisme schooling, we moved on to a grand Gaudi walking tour of our own. We hiked first to the nearby 'Block of Discord', a city block of wild architecture from some of Barcelona's best. Next, a few blocks down, was Gaudi's monumental La Pedrera, A fair hike from there the absolutely mind boggling Sagrada Família came into view. You've probably seen this on a documentary somewhere, but it has to be the most fascinating building we've ever seen in person. It also had a line halfway around it (and it is huge), so we'll pick up some tickets online tonight and be back tomorrow. From there we thankfully climbed down into a semi-subteranean Irish Pub for a pint and bite to eat. Cooled off and refreshed, we continued on past the Gaudi Hospital de Sant Pau and then directly up an awfully steep hill to be hiking in this heat for a couple of Alaskans. We eventually made it to Gaudi's Park Guell, a pretty ridiculous looking place that we would both move to if it weren't for the heat. We toured Gaudi's house and stared at a lot of pretty awesome architecture for a while. As we were about ready to go, we had the chance to help a panicky husband and seemingly fit lady hook up with an ambulance he called when she suddenly couldn't walk anymore. By the time the paramedics got there she had cooled off and was mostly functional, but headed off to the hospital for safety. We, on the other hand, walked to the nearest metro and took it back to the Ramblas. It really is the way to go. We opted to eat out tonight and had some great tapas, eventually calling it a tremendously productive day.
Today's Photos
