Barcelona, Spain (Part 2 of 2)

I've got a 10:00 AM ticket for a guided tour of what is called the Monumental Zone of Park Guell

The park is easily walkable from my hostel but I have come to learn that I'm absolutely directionally challenged even when using Google Maps.  Not to mention that it's walking all up hill!  Therefore, I walk up the street 5 blocks and get on the bus which drops me off right in front of the meeting spot for the tour.  Can't get any easier than that.

The Diagonal

Unfortunately it's a fricken hot day today.  It's 32 C. with 78% humidity.  It's already frustratingly too hot for me and I've only just started my day!

I like this tour.  We all get bluetooth-like earpieces which is so much better than holding an old-fashioned walkie-talkie thing around your neck.  There are about 15 of us on the tour and it lasts one hour all the while the tour guide is trying her best to stop  only in shaded areas and she comments that there isn't a cloud in the sky and it'll get a lot hotter as the day goes on.

Park Guell is a public park that is free to visit but if you want to go in to the Monumental Zone then a ticket purchase is required.  It was only about $12 or $14 and I thought worthwhile.  The premise of this interior zone is that it was where, in 1885, Gaudí's patron, the industrialist Eusebi Güell, acquired the terrain on a mountain ridge, with a fantastic view of Barcelona. In 1890 Güell instructed the architect Antoni Gaudí to build a garden city, in which nature and housing would co-exist.  The grand plan was to build a "subdivision" (as we would now refer to it) of 600 homes overlooking Barcelona.  Three homes were built and that is as far as this plan got off the ground.  It seems that it was just too far away from the city back in the days of horse and carriage.

Looking out over Barcelona from Park Guell
 (the ocean is off in the distance but you can't see it for the haze).

This is a pillar holding up the ledge/"balcony" above it. 
See below photo for the overall structure that this pillar is holding up

Due to the extreme heat and humidity I don't spend more than 90 minutes at the park and I don't actually see any of the park at all with the exception of this Monumental Zone.

I decide to walk leisurely back to my hostel (seeing as it's all downhill).  It's Sunday and the streets are very quiet. I pass by a few plazas where people are sitting, drinking and eating, a few shops are open but the vast majority of shops are shuttered.  

Quiet streets of Barcelona on a Sunday afternoon

It's so weird to be in a country that is not focused on consumerism and non-stop shopping 24/7.

I relax a bit in the lounge of my hostel and chat with Daniel from Germany.  He plants the seed in my mind of doing a Hop-on Hop-off tour.  Hmmm... might be a plan for tomorrow.

I'd better do some laundry.  The hostel has a washer and dryer but I've heard mixed reviews.  A wash is 3 Euros and a dry, well my roomie dried her clothes for 6 Euros and they came out damp.  The laundry is a very popular room at the hostel.  There's often 2-3 people waiting for the machines.  One night when I was walking back to my hostel I noticed a "La Wash" kitty-corner to the hostel.  It has only 4 washers and 3 driers and is completely self-serve as no one works in this tiny hole-in-the-wall.    Laundrymat

Laundromat & vicinity

It ends up being a very expensive load of laundry.  4 Euros to wash and 2 Euros for 15 minutes of drying (4 Euros does the job), so for $13.50 Cdn I have clean clothes!  

I go for dinner just down the street to a Mexican burrito place that I had heard chatter about in the hostel.  The great thing about hostels is you can pretty much find out where to eat simply from overhearing conversations or asking others.  

After dinner I go walking (and get super lost) back in the direction of  La Sagrada Familia so I can take some more photos in the evening light. Sunday night walking down what is known as "the Diagonal" (because it's a street that runs diagonally through Barcelona) is interesting.  Lots and lots of family out sitting on benches, kids playing in the little parks scattered on every block.  I get it now.  Because they all live in apartments this is their "backyard" so to speak.  It's where they go to catch up with their neighbors, let their kids play, and just get out of the house.

La Sagrada Familia doesn't disappoint.  Even more beautiful in the evening light than it was in the morning.  So glad I went back.  I get lost trying to find my way back to my hostel.  I circle La Sagrada Familia a few times trying to get my bearings.  Told you I'm a failure at Google Maps.

I have to check out of my room this morning and move to a co-ed room.  That's what happens when I decided to add an extra night to Barcelona months ago but all the female only rooms were already spoken for.  I had been checking daily for cancellations with the hope I can stay in my current room but no such thing.  I pack up my stuff and check it in to the locked room by the reception desk.  I can't check into my new room until 3:00 PM.  

I decide to do a Hop On Hop Off bus tour.  It's my last day in Barcelona and I really don't know what else to do so it's a way to pass the day.  It's possible to purchase tickets directly from the driver at any stop.  30 Euros for a one-day pass that goes on three different routes.  

As it ends up, the weather is decent. Not a scorcher, it's gray and cloudy and it actually spits rain for a bit.  Not enough to make any of us move from the top deck of the uncovered bus.  Here's some sights from the tour.

Montjuic.
All cordoned off for the huge fireworks show tomorrow night.

Montjuic

Fountains and gardens at Montjuic

Subway entrance

Beautiful mosaic benches throughout the city

The tour being over I head back to my hostel, check in to my new room and go to the lounge for a bit of relaxation before dinner.  There is a French family with three young girls I would estimate to be aged 3, 4, and 6.  It's the cutest thing (I would never take a photo of them without permission).  The girls were obviously freshly showered, their hair still wet.  They all had on knee socks, no shoes and were sitting side-by-side on the lounge covered in a pink fuzzy blanket watching a Disney show. Quiet as mice they were.  Sooo cute. 

Lounge of the hostel.

My new roommates  in my new room are two guys from Brazil.  Very nice men.  They are relaxing on their beds and tell me about the Swiss "Pig" (their word), who is in the other bunk.  His stuff was spread all over the place so the woman who just checked out of this room so I could have it - she took all this stuff and threw it in a big pile in the corner.  I kid you not, it was a mountain of stuff.  His suitcase had literally exploded and was opened up with stuff pouring out of it.  Apparently he had a penchant for putting his stuff on her bed and she would put him in his place.

I've heard some talk in the hostel of a really good tapas place just down the street.  As has become my custom here, I always do a Google review before I eat at most places.  This place comes well reviewed Le Pepita

I'm there right at 8:00 PM and it's already lined up to get inside.  It's a small place and jam-packed.  I get a seat at the bar.  I order a glass of wine and some tapas:

Shrimp croquettes and Tuna Pepita.  It was sooo delicious.

The Floridian couple seated to my right were very friendly and chatted me up for a long while.  He was here on a conference and his wife came along for a vacation.  They have been to Spain multiple times and it's a place they keep coming back to over and over again as they are turned off of Mexico (Los Cabos) due to the violence.

Eventually, the two women seated to my left wanted to strike up a conversation when they overheard I am from Vancouver.  I have found that in Europe, moreso than in Asia, that once people know you are from Vancouver they become very friendly.  It makes me proud to come from such a beautiful city that everyone has heard of and either has been there or wants to go there.  As it turns out, one of the women is also a Floridian.  However, her husband has a EU passport and she basically lives in Spain most of the year. Her adult kids are dual-citizens and live in Spain.   She tells me about the neighbourhood and how much she loves Spain, its people and the lifestyle.  She told me of a huge protest that happened just a couple of weeks ago (if you see the Yellow ribbons in some of my photos - that shows support for the protest - it has nothing to do with Cancer).  So she tells me that 10's of thousands of people took to the streets and for 15 minutes straight they were clanging spoons against the railings of their windows and balconies.  She said the sound was really something.  She added that it was so peaceful, no police letting it get to their heads and becoming all authoritarian with the people.  These two ladies finish their meal and leave.

At the end of the bar to my left are two Spanish women.  Obviously they've overheard my conversations as one says to me "Come sit over here with us", and I say "pardon me", she repeats herself and says "you can come out with us".    I reply that it is very nice of them to invite me but I am not going out. She says "You can't go out".  I say "I can go out but I am not going out".  This conversation would NEVER happen in Vancouver.  So cool.

I finish up my wine, pay my bill and go back to the hostel.  I have to be up early in the morning to be on the 8:30 AM train to Cordoba.

My Brazillian roomies have gone out.  The place stinks of aftershave and bodycare products.  Holy fricken toledo!  I'm not impressed.  Can't open the window of the hostel (in the late afternoon they lock them shut for some reason).  It stinks so bad that I have to sleep with my folded towel over my face the entire night.  The smell never does dissipate by the time I get up at 6:45 AM to check out.

Next stop Cordoba, Spain.