Barcelona, Spain
Barcelona is a hot spot for European tourist! We had to stay at a University campus residence because every hotel in the city was pretty much sold out or way above our budget. Although we arrived into the city late and the residence was on the outskirts of Barcelona, we were eager to get touring so we dropped off our packs and headed into the city.
Barcelona is a hot spot for European tourist! We had to stay at a University campus residence because every hotel in the city was pretty much sold out or way above our budget. Although we arrived into the city late and the residence was on the outskirts of Barcelona, we were eager to get touring so we dropped off our packs and headed into the city.
After following a group of Hare Krishna's through the streets, we ended up in one of many European squares that bustles in the evenings with restauranteurs.
In the middle of the main street was a large walkway for pedestrians. It was full of performers, little shops and restaurants. We stopped to eat at one of the restaurants and enjoyed the watching the people come and go!
As it got late and we were exhausted from our day of exploring and traveling we decided that we would head back to our residence. We knew after 10:30pm that we had to take the night bus...so we were heading in the right direction and found the right bus number and hopped on! Little did we know, you should be careful when hopping on a bus in a traffic circle, because you just never know which direction it is actually going. Needless to say, we rode the city bus all the way to a different city, got to the top of a mountain and the bus driver said that's the last stop, get off the bus!!! Shocked, lost and tired, we were slightly worried. Asking if we could ride back in the direction we were meant to go, the driver only insisted we get off the bus...oh boy! (she did not understand english, but luckily another guy did the exact same thing as us and translated)...she eventually said yes, but we would have to pay the fare again!! Well we made it home by 2:30am and after a 3 hour night bus journey!
August 24th
We knew that Barcelona had a lot of architecture to explore, so we decided that we would explore the city by bus!! We did the Barcelona Hop On/Hop Off tour bus and was taken to so many different places in the city that we would not have even known about!
Spain is HOT, but thankfully Barcelona had way less humidity than Valencia! They all use these fans to keep cool...very clever! Here we are waiting in line for the bus tour. The line was so long, we could not get over how many people were visiting Barcelona!
On the bus!!
A cool dragon fence by Gaudi...he pretty much owns the place(Barcelona) and we could have easily spent 2 days just looking at his work!
So in Barcelona, our architectural school came alive! There are so many well known architects with their works found in Barcelona that we were overwhelmed! Besides some key works by Gaudi, we also were able to see Mies Van Der Rohe, Santiago Calatrava, Arata Isozaki (we did a hugh project on him), Norman Foster...but don't worry we will only show you a couple and try not to bore you too much! We kept joking that BCIT should do a field trip to Barcelona, because seeing what you learned about makes so much more of an impact!
Starting with Mies Van Der Rohe's Barcelona Pavilion. We actually recreated this work digitally in school, every last detail rendered, so that our work looks as realistic as the pictures above minus the models...lol. It was so neat to see it in real life!
A huge palace in Barcelona that we were impressed with!
The Torre Calatrava, which is a communications tower from the 1992 Summer Olympics
The coolest candy store we have EVER been in!!! It was called Happy Pills!
Steven chilling on the awesome street posts
Next, is Antoni Gaudi's work.
He had a very interesting style called modernista.
Most well known for the Sagrada Família Church that has been under construction since 1882. Construction is still continuing and you can see a big difference between the new part of the church and the older weathered areas.
A very large church!
We have seen a lot of churches on our journey so far but have not seen any sculptures in the cubist style. Shown here is Jesus and the apostles. We quite liked them!
Each elevation seems to have it's own style. This side looks a bit like a sand castle, built by drizzling wet sand into piles.
Gaudi knew that this church would never be finished construction in his lifetime, and it wasn't as he died in 1926. He would tell people that even though he would die, "God has all of the time in the world!"
A collision of iron, copper and stainless steel, and Steve visualizing himself ascending.
Architectural Highlight
We saw a lot of impressive work in Barcelona but this piece; Diagonal 00 Telefonic by Enric Massip-Bosch had us in awe.
Ok, so we hope that we did not bore you with too much architecture (But is that really possible?!). We only spent 2 nights in Barcelona, but wished that we stayed longer because there was so much more to do and explore! Barcelona has a gorgeous beach on the Mediterranean Sea that we did not get a chance to enjoy, and so much culture and shopping. Barcelona is definitely a place we would love to come back to!
Saying goodbye to Spain...Next stop, Carcassonne, France
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