Five and a half miles around the city. It was raining yesterday so all I really saw was the Palau de la Musica Catalana, which was awesome, but not open.
Ticket window - cute!
Just outside the ticket office
The rest of the day I stayed in mostly, got a falafel at Maoz, getting pretty wet in the process, and then met a couple colleagues for dinner. We went up to L'eixample and got wet again but found an ok pizza joint. I had 'sobrasada' but it appeared to be blood sausage, which was ok. Didn't expect to eat the whole thing but hey! guess I was hungry.
Sunday - cloudy, but not rainy, except for fifteen minutes. We begin our 5.5 mile journey at the Palau, since there was a concert at noon for 11 euros and hey why not? Better than taking the guided tour! I picked up my tickets and got inside and realized that more than half the audience was under 6 years old. Children's concert - two singers, a catalan woman silently gliding here and there bringing props, and six dancers. Songs covered animals, fire, ships and water, right and left and other directions, and sleepytime. The Palau is a nifty place, architecturally - very rich in detail!
I bought some nice espresso cups at the gift shop and headed for the Picasso museum, which was free (and packed) today, the first sunday of February. It had some nice things.
Then up the Passeig de Gracia past Bvlgari and Armani and blah blah blah to find the Gaudi houses. On the way I passed this facade under construction/rehab, with a Barcelona Bicing van (pulling a flatbed full of bikes that people don't want to ride back uphill) driving by.
After a while I got to one of the houses. I missed the other two right next to this one.
Then I continued up and got to La Pedrera. It's famous. I didn't go in.
The ironwork is quite nice.
As is the door. Reminds me of the veining on the outside of a nutmeg.
Walking, walking...hey look! Bikes tourists are not allowed to use!
And some really great traffic calming, using parking spaces and recycling/garbage bins to narrow roads and separate the bike lane.
A handy map pointing out your position and the other nearest Bicing stations, with instructions for swiping your card in Castillan and Catalan. If you can't read those you don't get to bike!
Actually, the rent-a-bike/bike-tour lobby is strong in Barcelona, and they convinced the city to make it hard for tourists to get a Bicing card (you have to have an address in Barcelona).
Many bikes = many bike thieves. This was a pretty common sight.
Hm, what's that over there?
Why, a giant owl, of course!
Aha, la Sagrada Familia. It is extremely tall, and very Wizard of Oz/Emerald City.
This was one of two ping pong tables I saw in parks.
Angular.
Oh noes!
Many words on all the different parts of the cathedral.
The back side looks a little lumpy.
Closer to the lumps.
I turned south down Marina, another wide avenue, that has separate signals for pedestrians and bikes.
And basically the nicest bike lanes in the world!
Then I got to this building, which looked like a big old Jewish arena.
Nice domes on the top. Back at the internet I found out this wasn't Jewish at all, but the Barcelona BullFighting Arena. Now mostly they have concerts here.
Walk walk walk. I went through the Parc de la Ciutat, where the Zoo and the Geological Museum were, and saw a lot of people walking happy goofy dogs. I stopped by Santa Maria del Mar, a nice old plain church, but it wasn't open yet, so I continued along the port towards the Maritime museum. At the Ministry of Defense they had some nice doors.
The Maritime Museum had a lot of nice ships.
But I was pretty tired.
More traffic calming measures! "From monday to saturday, cars only allowed from 11-3pm and from 5-8:30pm. Sundays and holidays allowed all day.
Walking around the old part of the city it's really not designed for cars, even the tiny European ones. They are limited to the wider avenues and there seems to be only underground parking (and plenty of it). A lot of people were on bikes, either their own or the red Bicing bikes, which have the 30 euro/year deposit, but are free for the first 30 minutes you have one out, and are located next to all metro stations, among other places.
I wouldn't say I've been eating great, but not eating great in Barcelona is like eating really well in Baltimore, so I'm happy. Apparently the beagles can sniff out jamon iberico through vacuum packaging so too bad for Joshua and Edith.
I bought some stuff on my way back from the Maritime museum, but most everything is closed today (another oops). We'll see what I can get at the airport tomorrow.
Off to Geneva in the morning!
