Barcelona Day 3: Guellest Park Ever

On day 3 we took a bus to Park Güell, designed by Catalonia’s favorite architect artists Antoni Gaudi and commissioned by Catalan Count Eusebi Güell, for whom the park was named. This place was AWESOME. It’s located on a hill in the northern part of Barcelona, so in addition to being just a really cool park, it offers fantastic views of the rest of the city, much like Montjuic. We started by climbing up as high as we could, in order to enjoy the great view, which included the ocean, Mount Tibidabo (which happens to be the future name of Michal’s non-existent future pet), La Sagrada Familia, the harbor, and most other landmarks. 

Church on top of Mount Tibidabo, with the
amusement park in the foreground

Gurken-esque building and La Sagrada Familia

The park was filled with these structures called viaducts, which you can see in the pictures and video below. You could walk on and under the viaducts, and the ones near the entrance to the park had gorgeous bright mosaics on the underside. 

The highlight of the park is the fountain (sadly dry because of the winter) where the tile starts to get really crazy. Although in the video we said the stuff is gaudy, it’s gaudy in the COOLEST WAY POSSIBLE. Gaudi really was a genius. His works is so unique and so beautiful! In front of the fountain were these two cool huts that I thought looked like Gingerbread Houses (they were described in Lonely Planet as “Hansel and Gretel-esque Structures”). I thought they were very adorable. One of them houses the gift shop and the other a little mini art exhibit, so they even have purpose! We again had beautiful weather so Michal and I spent a lot of time just roaming through the park. There were lots of people selling jewelry, a guy making huge bubbles (he had dreds and parachute pants), and many musicians playing throughout the area. Some of them were really quite talented, including one woman playing a steel drum kind of instrument, and another guy singing and playing blues on his guitar. Aside from the park being pretty crowded, everything was pretty much perfect.

The fountain and A LOT of people are behind me

One of my favorite tile patterns

Lizard fountain

Random house in the park that is really pretty

On our way back downtown we saw a huge, awesome-looking building from the bus so we got off at the next stop to check it out. Turns out it was a hospital! We stopped for lunch at a restaurant next to it and when we sat down, realized that the street we were on connected directly to Sagrada Familia. And, it was called Gaudi street. And we ordered something called Gaudi pizza. All very fitting for the theme of our day!

After a delicious lunch we went to the Music Museum, which included an impressively extensive collection of instruments from historical periods ranging from the middle ages to modern electric stuff. The exhibit went through the history of music and each section had music playing that fit that time period (and the instruments that went along with it). At the end there was a huge section with instruments from various geographic regions and a really cool video montage of music all over the world. The final room had instruments you could try playing yourself including a mini organ, cello, harp, and electric guitar! Since Michal and I were the only ones in there we had a lot of fun, although Michal said the cello desperately needed rosin and one of the strings was apparently completely shot. I also tried in vain to tune the guitar, but it was pretty hopeless. Oh well.

Cool horse statue in the courtyard of the Music Museum

Because it was New Years Eve that night we chilled at home for a few hours in the evening. Around 11:15 we headed out to Placa Catalunya to join the masses celebrating the New Year. I peppered Michal with “let’s reflect” questions on the walk there, which caused us to discuss the year’s biggest films, political events, news stories, celebrity drama, etc. We were pretty depressed that there was no Dick Clark or Ryan Seacrest to tell us exactly when to celebrate (celebrating 6 hours before the ball drops just feels wrong), but we did enjoy observing how various groups of Europeans all seemed to think midnight came at different times. Some French guys started cheering while the Italians were still counting down, and the Spanish folks next to us didn’t seem to care one way or the other. We successfully dodged several bottles of raining champagne and escaped the crowds unscathed, making our way to the Arc de Triompfe park, which was basically empty but quite beautiful. We were home and in bed by about 1:00, happy to have been able to experience a different country’s New Years celebration!

Placa Catalunya getting ready for the New Year!