Tochi's Hut

BARCELONA, SPAIN (TochiHut) – A city strategically situated on the northern coast of the Mediterranean, Barcelona has a very storied history, influenced by many cultures, people and the rise and fall of dynasties and revolutions.  Given its history, I had expected to find a very old, hot, humid, noisy and busy metropolis, as that was my general impression of much of Spain.  As you’ll soon see, Barcelona is nothing like that.  In fact, Barcelona was one of the more modern, vibrant cities I visited on this trip.  I know I’ve been slacking on photos in the past couple posts, so I plan on making it up here.  Now, hop onboard and join Tochi for a quick tour of Barcelona…

Overview

This is downtown Barcelona, taken from Montjüic.  Much of Barcelona is very flat, but is rimmed with mountains.  Very few skyscrapers dot its skyline.  The cathedral you see there is the famous La Sagrada Familia, still under construction after 120 years.  I gave this photo a sepia treatment for the aged effect.

Now, this is Passeig de Gràcia, one of the arteries through modern Barcelona.  Quite a different view of Barcelona, eh? :)

Antonio Gaudi

Since I mentioned La Sagrada Familia already, I will jump into probably the best thing to have ever happened to the city – Antonio Gaudi.  A famed architect with visions well before his time, his works are found throughout the city and form many of the must-visit tourist attractions. 

Gaudi’s style is very difficult to describe, many of which are so out-of-this-world and unlike anything I had ever seen.  Curves and conics are fundamental to all of Gaudi’s work, which is completely unheard of in the stricter, more mundane (imo) designs of his days.  Even ultra-modern curvy “slick” designs of present day are unlike Gaudi’s work.   The best way I can put Gaudi’s art is that there is a biological and organic feel, almost a human aspect, to a lot of his work.  A lot of the curvatures resemble… people.  An example is in order.

This is Casa Milà (aka La Pedrera), located a short walk from our hostel on Passeig de Gràcia.  Compared to the other buildings in the area, which have more of a rectangular modernist movement feel, the parallel flow of curves on the front façade definitely makes this building stand out.

The most famous parts of this building are its rooftop chimneys / lampposts.   Here’s a close up of one of them.  This one reminds me of a giant gnome for some reason. :P

Gaudi other works are even more remarkable.  My favourite building is Casa Batlló, another landmark on Passeig de Gràcia.  The lower two levels remind of the ghost mask poster face of Scream.  The part I love about this building is the little tiles used to decorate the outer wall on the upper levels.   The blend of seemingly disjoint and different coloured pieces creates a really powerful mosaic of colours that fits so well with the building.  Oh yeah, and this building was about the only time I made use of my 12-24mm wide angle lens on the trip.

Gaudi’s most famous architecture is definitely La Sagrada Familia, a gigantic cathedral just north of downtown Barcelona.  Construction for the church started in 1882 and it is still ongoing.  I seem to be repeating myself a lot here, but La Sagrada Familia has to be one of the most unique cathedrals I’ve visited, ever.

First of all, I’ve never seen such a fancy cathedral still in the process of being built.  A good portion of the stone façade was still whitish, a tell-tale sign of it being a recent addition.  It was actually weird to see the marked contrast in the age of different parts of the church, which is expected if construction has spanned over 120 years.  Anyway, it made me think what it would have been like to be back in the days when the greatest cathedrals of the world were being built.  The feeling must have been like this.  La Sagrada Familia will definitely be a hallmark for centuries to come.

The sculptures and pedestals around the cathedral were very cartoonish, for a lack of better term.  They reminded me of Zelda Wind Waker type art, which kind of fits such a funky looking church.  It was interesting that a lot of the pieces were very planar, unlike the other Gaudi works I’ve seen so far.  In fact, it wasn’t just the statues, but this building had a lot more planar aspects incorporated into as well, which I found a bit puzzling.  La Sagrada Familia was the last work that Gaudi worked on till his death and his plans and models were destroyed in the Catalan anarchist war.  I wonder how much of this is related to the new architects trying to finish the church.  It just doesn’t feel as Gaudi to me.

Construction workers were still busy molding and sculpting various pieces that will eventually become part of the cathedral inside.  It must be pretty cool to be able to contribute to such an impressive project.

The overall feel of the church was very majestic, almost dominating at times.  The exterior façade, in particular, the Nativity (shown on the left) almost screams out at you with a sense of mourning and yearning (not much of the Nativity story, until you see the sculptures up close).  From the moment you walk through the doors, with 3D etched letters popping out at you, to the tree-like columns supporting the grand vault, it is hard not to stand in awe.  I really hope that this cathedral gets completed in my lifetime, so that I may return one day to take in the finished work.

The most fascinating part of my visit was the engineering school in a little hobbit house, which showcased the mathematics behind some of the geometric shapes in La Sagrada Familia. A lot of them were based on hyperboloids transforming into various other shapes.  Made me kind of miss topology.

Gaudi has one more famous attraction in Barcelona, his Parc Güell.  Unfortunately, we did not have time to visit this garden, as it was a choice between this park or a virtual cache.  We picked the virtual cache instead, which turned out to be the right choice.  Save this Gaudi garden for my next visit to Barcelona.

Top of Barcelona

For those still reading, you might be wondering how amazing this virtual cache must have been that Tochi will actually prefer to cache (!) over visiting another Gaudi attraction.  Well, on our last day in Barcelona, we decided to head up to Tibidabo, a mountain north of the city that offers a spectacular view of Barcelona and the Mediterranean coastline.

A quick aside for a second while I describe the Barcelona Metro system.  While a bit old, there is a great network of trains and subways.  You can buy a T-10 pass that enables you to take 10 trips for the price of 6.  I brought a T-10 on my first day, which I quickly used up.  And because I cannot count past 5, I kept on buying single fare bills until I realized I should have gotten a T-10 again.  Finally did get another T-10 on the very last day, and ended up using like 3 trips on it.  It is still valid for another 6 months, if I happen to be back!  The only thing about the subways I did not like was at certain stations, you had to walk quite a distance to get to different platforms.  Some of those walks were probably at least 400m, with sections where you go down some stairs only to come up another set moments later. Grr.

Okay, back to Tibidabo.  We took a subway, then a train, followed by a missing tram, and finally a funky looking funicular to get up to Tibidabo.  BlueOrca saw some space invaders looking signs along the way.  At the top, there’s an pretty decent amusement park and a church, Temple de Sagrat Cor.  The virtual cache was at the church.

Here’s a view of Barcelona from the Tibidabo amusement park.  The Church is actually quite new.  When you get up to the upper platform, you’ll see a small little chapel that was the original one built about 100 years ago.  Beside it now stands this monolithic church soaring probably 50 times higher than its predecessor.  There wasn’t too much special about this church in my opinion.  Having been to quite a few during E08, church things are kind of hazy in my mind.  I just remembered that we got the answer to the virtual cache from the brochure, only to realize a few days after we submitted the answer, we didn’t read the question properly.  Oh well.

Besides Tibidabo, BlueOrca and I also visited another mountain that offers a great view of the city – Montjuïc.  As a coastal guardian to the west of the city, a historic fort was raised at the top to “protect” Barcelona.  We took the most expensive cable car ever to get to Montjuïc from the beaches area (9 Euros).  The ride did offer remarkable views of the city’s waterfront and harbour.  Once we got off the cable car, BlueOrca and I cached our way up to the fort.  Met C C ya later family from OC, California while doing a multi cache.  I’ve never met such an adorable little girl who’s so into geocaching. lol.

Castell de Montjuïc is this 18th century castle that sits on top of Montjuïc.  It was almost sunset by the time we got up to the castle, but the gates were still wide open for us to stroll right in.  We roamed around the fort a bit, taking in the sights from the surrounding areas.   Since it was evening, the setting sun’s rays were coming through over the mountain and bathing its light onto the city.  The view was quite pretty. 

BlueOrca saw some Tappy cats and birds while in the castle and tried to photograph them.  Eventually, the groundskeeper found us and kicked us out.  Some white dude dressed in a kung-fu attire tried to hitch a ride with BlueOrca and me down the mountain, the only problem being, neither BlueOrca nor I had a car.

After that, we decided to explore the rest of Montjuïc , which means…

Olympic Park

Barcelona was the site of the 1992 Summer Games of the XXV Olympiad.  The main Olympic park is situated on the lower portions of Montjuïc.  The 1992 Summer Olympics was the first games that I recall really watching; not that I remember very much.  However, the arrow shooting cauldron lighting opening ceremony remains engraved in my memory.

I visited this Olympic Park twice on this trip, once before BlueOrca arrived and again afterwards with BlueOrca.  Got to see the main Olympic Stadium, the Swimming tank, Olympic Bell, Olympic Torch, and the very very cool looking Calatrava Tower in the Olympic Circle (Anella Olímpica).  Things were quiet in the Olympic Park, probably because we were visiting in the evening. 

During the second trip back with BlueOrca, we were in the Olympic Park shooting some photos.  A Romanian guy came up to ask for directions to FC Barcelona’s stadium.  While I was talking with him, two undercover police officers came up to us, asking for ID.  They gave the Romanian guy a terribly hard time and proceeded to check our IDs.  I had no idea what the heck was going on.  They also asked us to show them our cash, which they rubbed to see if it’s “real”.  They told us this is a very dangerous area, with people dealing drugs, etc.  They saw on the CCTV the three of us hanging around in the plaza, so came out to check up on us.  These Romanian guys are very dangerous. 

After the "officers” left, everything was on high alert.  I was like, these guys know how much money we have, let’s get the heck out of here before we get mugged.  I was totally paranoid for several days afterwards.  While looking at stuff online after the trip, I stumbled upon this particular encounter by another tourist.  Man, we totally got off lucky.  

Reading about some of the other stories on that page, this one caught my eye too:

Outside the Sagrada Familia we were approached by two women who forced a red carnation onto each of us. Mine was pushed down the front of my tee shirt! They indicated that there was to be an exhibition of flamenco and then asked us each for 1 cent. As this was such a small amount of money we both thought this would be a good way of getting rid of them and got out our purses. That was what they wanted. They tried to 'help' us find the appropriate coin by putting their fingers into the coin compartments of our purses. Later, and too late, we realised that whilst doing this, they had milked out the notes from the note compartment. The next day we returned to the same place and watched two other gypsy women pull the same scam."

We both had picked up a carnation outside Casa Batlló  earlier during the day.  Chills are going down my bones right now.  I feel like a newbie and haven’t seen the real, dangerous world out there… I was really “很天真和很傻”.. lol.  It is one thing to hear the stories, but it’s another to experience two close encounters in the same day.

Downtown Barcelona

I’ll finish off the tour back in the city – Las Ramblas.   Las Ramblas is a major pedestrian promenade running through the heart of Barcelona.   We started from its northern end near Placa Cataluyna and headed south.  The boulevard is quite vibrant, with a lot of tourists meandering about and a lot of artists selling their craft. 

BlueOrca needed to cash some of her traveler’s cheques on a Sunday when none of the banks were opened.  We were guided to the cash exchanges on Las Ramblas.  BlueOrca found two exchanges beside each other and went for the one with the better exchange rate, which happens to be really really good.  Too good to be true, as we found out the hard way.  The service charge/commission, written in super fine text, was an exuberant 18%.  :(

Les Ramblas connects several unique districts, probably the most famous of which is the “China Town” and Red Light district.  We came during the day, so not much action there.  We decided to take a side journey towards the gothic area of Barcelona. 

Old Barcelona is full of tight alleyways and little courtyards.  Before coming to Barcelona, I saw some amazing HDR shots of the alleyways on Flickr.  Unfortunately, the day was overcast and ruined all my alleyway photos.  We did stumble onto a courtyard where a half dozen kids were playing football.  Now, this is what I expect from Spain.  The scene reminded me of this World Cup commercial by Adidas (Another funny commercial is here).

We made our way to Plaça de Sant Jaume, where we witnessed some live music and dancing performances of the Sardana, the national dance of Catalonia (Thanks to BlueOrca Galleries for this tip).  The Sardana is a circular dance whereby people form a ring.  While watching it, I would have loved to join in if it hadn’t been only old people dancing.  :(  I also wanted to stick my camera right in the middle of the circle and take a shot looking up.  I found out later at a stone statue of the Sardana dance that even my 12-24mm would not have been wide enough.  We watched for a while, before moving on.

The main cathedral in Old Barcelona was Cathedral Cloister.  There were 13 geese roaming leisurely in the fenced in courtyard.  I didn’t take very many pictures of the Cloister as it was lined with alcoves all around.  It totally reminded me of the Abbey in Saltzburg and the Sound of Music.  Even though there were not gravestone stuff behind the fences, I was still a bit spooked.  Just walked around shooting geese and water fountains while BlueOrca captured the church with her camera.

We also visited a Basilica named Santa Maria del Mar, which was much more traditional than Cathedral Cloister.  Yes, this is where I was asked not to use my tripod.  Fine, if you do not want Tochi to showcase your church to all of TochiHut’s readers (free advertising), it’s your loss.

We had seen some really fancy column work in postcard photos taken at Palau de la Musica.  This music palace is a really really fancy concert hall.  Arriving here, we could see the balcony with the famous columns from the street.  It was rather lackluster, though I'd imagine it'll look a lot more beautiful if I was actually on the balcony, or if the columns were lit up at night.  The interior of the hall was quite dazzling.  I loved the open marble staircase with gold railing columns and glass tiles on the ceiling.  This time, BlueOrca warned me about no photography before the guy started approaching.  I was thinking, I’m blind.  I did not see any signs, so please do not tell me about them.  I managed to take a few shots of the nice interior decor before I was requested officially to stop shooting.  We promptly left afterwards.

Here’s the top of a marble fountain we saw while walking out of Old Barcelona to the waterfront.  The strong sunset rays were basking the statue and buildings.  For the first time in the day, I was glad to have overcast skies. 

Finally, we got to Port Vell, the very modern waterfront district of Barcelona.  We might not have discovered this area had it not been DAS BOOT.  We took a leisurely stroll along the main pedestrian artery out towards the harbour.  It really has a very peaceful, coastal broadwalk feel.  We passed by the sub that was “Das Boot” and BlueOrca promptly came up with the missing piece.  There was an aquarium, an IMAX theatre, a cool pedestrian bridge and a very modern looking mall that reminded me of the likes of IFC and 奧海城.   I needed a restroom break, so I left BlueOrca outside with my tripod, while I hurried into the mall to look for relief.  Afterwards, I took a quick stroll through some of the shops as there were many little boutiques.  The mall was closing at that time, so I couldn’t shop around too much (and BlueOrca was probably worried sick and wondering why I was taking so long! XD)

While at Port Vell, we had spotted the following statue. Given that the figure was pointing westward and this is Barcelona, I surmised that we were looking at Christopher Columbus. From the map though, it was Placa de la Carbonera. You'd think if it's Christopher Columbus, they'd name the plaza after him too. Anyway, it did turn out to be Christopher.

It was twilight “zone” (lol) while we were at Port Vell, my favourite time for photography. Got a lot of cool colours and night light shots. I love this area - might rank as my favourite place in Barcelona. Kind of wish that Toronto had something similar.

Port Vell is the terminating point for Las Ramblas.  I guess one last story of interest is that we found out why all the fountains in the city were.. dry.  There was suppose to be a magic fountain that is said to be super spectacular.  Apparently, Barcelona has a major drinking water problem for the past couple years.  There are discussions of building a 200 mile aqueduct from France to feed this region of Spain.  Given the water shortage, the city decided to get rid of the fountains.  I guess I should also mention that we brought a fateful postcard at Las Ramblas, which I promptly lost by the next day.  Some things just aren’t meant to be.

Food

In terms of food, typically on trips, I like to try local delicacies, not really caring what I eat, as long as it’s something different and not too disgusting. :)  BlueOrca had two things to try in Barcelona: Paella and Tapas. 

I heard on a Chinese radio show a month before the trip about Paellas – a seafood rice dish native to Spain (but not Barcelona).  After I saw a picture of the dish on the menu, I realized I had Paella already at Montserrat.  My brain never made the connection until now.  Paella wise, I liked the seafood, but I’m more of a solid rice person, so the Paella rice was a bit soft for me.  The dish was quite salty too. 

The Tapas we ordered weren’t very special, as I might have had too high of an expectation for these Spanish dim-sums.  I just remembered the service at this restaurant was rather subpar, so I did not leave with a very good impression.

However, during our second night, we ate at Polo Loco (or something like that), a chicken place that was really good.  I was a little uneasy when we were searching for food, as we were walking into the Red Light district area at 10pm.  You see weirdos rummaging through garbage cans and what not.  However, we got a great waiter guy and good chicken. 

The most rewarding aspect of E08 is probably getting to know your friends better.  I definitely found out about some peculiar preferences on this trip concerning carnivorous habits and the dissection of everyday fowl. XD

Final Thoughts

Barcelona.  5 out of 5.  I need to come back to see the fountains, watch an FC Barcelona match and visit Park Guell.  Loved the atmosphere, loved the city.   This post is already too long.  Hope you enjoyed the tour… and definitely visit Barcelona.  Well worth your time.  I’d say spend at least 4 days to truly explore the city.