BARCELONA - TOUR 1
A cute opportunity presented itself when we landed at Barcelona airport. The picture is self-explanatory; check out the writing and the cartoon characters on the plane.
We did a half day tour of Barcelona which started with the Mirador de l'Alcalde gardens in the north of Barcelona. From there, you have a lovely view of the city and the port. A portion of the ground of these gardens is made from recycled material such as broken tiles, bottle tops, broken glass, old gears, broken bricks and several other types of materials. Here are a few pictures of the ground.
This last one has incorporated what looks like butterflies....or airplanes.....take your pick!
A view of the port where the cruise ships dock.
Our tour guide who is also a photographer, took this one at the gardens.
From the north, we went downtown where our guide parked in an underground parking lot. I never thought I would ever want to take a picture of underground parking but this blew us away.
There are lights built into conduits along the ceilings which show the spots that are available and those which are not....Blue for available handicap spots; green for regular available spots and red for spots already taken (the red lights don't present well in the picture).
We stopped at the Boqueria Market off La Ramblas. You would think there would be a fishy smell at this seafood stand but there wasn't. We all commented on how different it was to North America.
Our next stop was at Park Guell. This park was initially intended to have seventy-three homes built in it but the concept was not popular among the rich so only one home was built. Gaudi was commissioned to design the park.
A view of a portion of the city from the park. Sagrada Familia cathedral can be seen with the crane at the top and the two Olympic Towers are just to the right.
This is the only home which was built and it is still in private hands. There are three different types of architecture evident - Moor at the very top, Medieval in the centre roof and Chinese above the windows (it looks like two triangular designs incorporating the green colour).
The viaducts supporting the roadways for horse and carriages back in the day.
A view from outside the viaducts. Gaudi incorporated nature and recycling into his designs; the stones used for building the viaducts were from the park itself when the roadway was being 'cut'. The columns of the viaducts are meant to look like palm trees.
This plaza was built for residents to socialize with each other. The benches, which are surprisingly comfortable, are made of broken tiles, glass and ceramic and have holes built into them which were meant to direct water into a filtering system below the plaza. There are also holes built into the plaza itself which were also meant to do the same thing.
This creation on the ceiling underneath the plaza represents one of four seasons.
And now it's photo-bombed by us and our tour guide.
Although these two houses are in the Park, neither was designed by Gaudi.
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