Today we woke up, checked out, and set off for our final day in Barcelona. Sadly, our day is pretty short since we have to work our way back to the airport a little earlier than normal so we have no repeat of the stressful trip here. So our first stop was Park Güell, a pretty great project by Gaudi. After our Metro ride, we ended up having to walk up the steepest rode in history for about ten minutes before coming to a series of about five escalators to take us the rest of the way. We finally made it to the top and enjoyed the view when we weren’t bent over gasping. It turns out that this park is on top of a hill just as tall (using my master surveying skills) as the one that the fortress sat on. We enjoyed the views for a while before heading in. Thankfully, the park sits in a valley so our first direction was down some pretty great switchbacks. The park itself is much like the roof of Casa Mila, filled with Gaudi structures, sculptures, and a few buildings. I don’t actually know how much of the landscape design he had his hands in, but the entire area is pretty great and the extra-curvy paths are Gaudi-ish. As we walked down we caught views of the amazing structure used to keep the paths up as they extend past the edge of the hill, and although they are clearly man-made, Gaudi’s nature-influenced style allows them to mesh with the stone of the hills. We ended up down in the main entry area that had two small buildings that looked like gingerbread houses mixed with cupcakes: pretty awesome. After taking a picture with the official Park Güell mascot (a silly, colorful lizard) we walked up that main stairs to the main structure of the area. It is primarily a hypostyle hall (a large, enclosed space filled with columns) that holds up a large plateau directly above it. The space was pretty fantastic, and even though vendors littered the area, it was very peaceful.
After enjoying this space we climbed up to the plateau, which turned out to be vendor heaven (or hell?). They were everywhere, and the gigantic mob of tourists all over the space made the completely outdoor space seem very restricting. At one point, the vendors must have seen a policeman because they all picked their little bags of stuff up and scattered in the quickest escape I have seen. We split up here so I could go climb to the top while they checked out the museum. The various stairs and switchbacks going up were quite a workout but very worth it! The top had more great views and some awesome natural spaces, as well as a pretty nice building. I continued up on a path that seemed to never stop, so instead I set off along the edge of the bowl that the park sits in. This path took me up to the highest point of the park, which had a small mound with a large stone cross on top. The area was pretty scary since there was no railing and the amount of people crammed on top made for quite the experience.
After enjoying the sites here I worked my way back down to meet up with the others. As it turns out, my route was the best since after they finally found the museum (signage was not Gaudi’s specialty), it turned out to be a gigantic disappointment. But nonetheless we set off to find a Metro stop to head back to the Art Museum because it is free on Sundays! We ended up walking down through a pretty cool area of the city, which seemed to be slightly (barely) less touristy, and slightly modern. We saw some interesting buildings and a pretty great entrance to a tunnel that had tons of neat public space around it before hopping on the train. After re-enjoying the walk to the stairs and hiking up them for the fourth time in two days, we got our first real bad news: of the three days each year that it is closed, May 1st is one of them. So we shuffled all the way back down to explore the cool stadium building that sits on the huge round-about that starts the main street leading up.
On our maps the building is labeled as a bullfighting arena, so we figured we could see some of the history of that. However, in a tour book we got, it is labeled as a Rock and Roll museum. Either way, we were excited to see it and it has a terrace that runs around the top for us to enjoy regardless. As it turns out, the building is a giant shopping mall (are we in America?) with the Rock Museum on the top floor. However, it cost five euro so we passed since it didn’t look that impressive. After walking around the observation deck and enjoying the sights, we decided to eat at the restaurant (Italian, of course) before leaving. It was a pretty classy place (they put an orange slice in my Fanta!) and the food was pretty great! Sadly, we ended up running very short on time so we had to shovel our food so we could go catch the shuttle to the airport.
After we finished our food we ran down to the Metro, took it to the station and had a very confusing moment. We were told that the Airport Shuttle would pick us up from this station, so when we were directed to the train station under the Metro stop we were skeptical of this simple plan. As it turns out, shuttle means anything that moves so we ended up taking a free train directly to the airport. The landscape was pretty great, and at the same disappointing because there was so much we didn’t get to see. But anyway, we made it to the airport and through security in plenty of time before relaxing at our gate until takeoff. Sadly, our first hiccup came in the form of an hour delay before we got on. I ended up falling asleep on the plane and when I woke up to the obnoxiously loud announcements, I realized it had been another hour and we hadn’t taken off. By the time we were in the air we should have been landing in Rome! But it was no big deal since this gave me more time to watch movies on the iPod (thanks Memaw!).
After our flight (they never stop talking over the loudspeaker! Ugh!) we took a bus into the city center before taking a train from the Termini station to our neighborhood. After a quick walk from the station in Trastevere, we were back home Tired, Tan (hahaha), and Triumphant. This was truly an amazing experience, and I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that we took a weekend trip to another country like it was nothing; I love Europe! Anyway, after some catching up with the apartment and a quick dinner, I collapsed in bed and slept instantly.
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