Walking and Sunday Mass

We arrived at Barcelona’s airport yesterday, bought our SIM cards and caught a taxi to our apartment. You can see the towers of La Sagrada Familia from our balcony. We thought an excursion to the Magic Fountain would be a good idea because it runs from 21.00 to 22.00 this time of year. We shopped at the supermarket, drank some Rioja and grazed on some nibbles and then a siesta before our excursion. Well ... we crashed. I woke at 22.00 and Lyn slept through to the next morning at 5.00.

To today. We walked to that part of Barcelona made famous by the Modernisme architects. The facades were remarkable but we only had time and money for one thorough tour. 

We chose Casa Batllo. It was designed and built by Antonio Gaudi in 1906 and is now is a UNESCO world heritage site. At present the amazing facade is hidden behind restoration scaffolding but inside is an Art Nouveau wonderland. The audio guide was great and even the shop was a joy.

Leaving Casa Batllo behind, the architectural wonders kept coming. However, we were on a schedule; coffee and cake and mass at midday.

Mass was in the old part of town, the Barri Gotic, at the bare and beautiful Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar. It was a lovely sung mass and the priest (bishop?) impressed us mightily by shaking hands with everybody in the church - we are talking hundreds of people here. 

After mass we had a brief wander through the narrow streets of the Barri Gotic. Lyn bought us hot chips in a paper cup. I found Roman walls and the statue of Christopher Columbus, who appears to be pointing resolutely toward Sardinia. Or perhaps his actual hometown - Genoa.

The final stage of our adventure was a walk up Barcelona’s very own tourist trap, the broad tree-lined boulevard called La Rambla. We were amazed at the different zones. We passed through North African junk zone, paint your portrait zone, weird alien performance artist zone, tourist souvenirs zone, kerbside restaurants zone and finally, very oddly, plant stalls specialising in succulents.

The adventure finished at Placa de Catalunya where we caught a local bus back to the apartment for siesta and another night in I suspect.