Vamos A La Playa

After Paris I made my way to the last leg of the trip in Spain. After being in the city and on the move we took a day on the beach (la playa) to recover. Barcelona is beautiful and had great weather! Our hostel was a little ways outside of city and right by the beach. The next day on Saturday we set out to explore the city. Lucky for us we picked the best weekend to be in Barcelona. There was a huge Barcelona Vs. Athletic Fotbal Final game in the FC Barcelona stadium. As we were walking through the city there were hundreds of Athletic fans dressed up in their red and white gear cheering throughout the city. It was a crazy atmosphere and a lot of fun to be in. On top of that there was a huge concert called Primavera which added even more excitement to the mix. Barcelona to begin with is a very lively and wild city so with all of these other events it truly made it quite the stay. We also found the huge food market in Barcelona and it was amazing! It was filled with fruit, chocolates, and meat although I primarily stayed in the fruit section.

 

Away team soccer fans going crazy

Fruit market!!

In the afternoon we took a walking tour of the city on Gaudi architecture. Gaudi was considered both a genius and a madman. Gaudi practically designed Barcelona and had a very unique and artistic take on houses and architecture. We walked through the city looking at his many creations and learned about his background. He played such a significant role in Barcelona so I am happy that we got to learn more about it.

This house tells the story of a local Barcelona legend about a dragon eating all the eldest daughters in the town until he was going to eat the King's daughter. A knight saves the day by slaying the dragon ad the princess is saved. The balconies are the skulls of the girls who were eaten and the roof is the slayed dragon. 

The people of Barcelona called it the Melting Sandcastle or melting Wedding Cake

That night we watched the Barcelona Vs. Athletic game in a bar and Barcelona won (as expected)! But it was so awesome to be there in the environment even if we weren’t able to go to the game (cheapest tickets were 300 euros and sold out way in advance).

Barcelona is one of the biggest cities we have travelled to other than Paris and not only that I didn’t know much about Barcelona so Cody and I did a hop-on-hop-off bus tour that drops you off at all the main sites and I’m glad we did. Like I said the city is huge and transportation was confusing so it worked out much better to do the bus tour. We hopped off at Park Gruel, which is another one of Gaudi's creations filled with many mosaics and lizards and interesting architecture. We hiked around the park too which was huge and had great views of the city.

We then hopped back on and got off at the next stop which was way up in the mountains, but we ended up having to hike(!) a lot of it which I was not prepared for. Luckily there was a funicular to take us the rest of the way to the top once we got about 3/4s of the way up. The top was beautiful!! There is an amusement park overlooking the entire city as well as a church and a couple places to eat. The church was the tallest point on the mountain and one of my favorites that I have been in so far (and I've been in about 100 cathedrals/churches this semester). The mosiacs and ambiance with the candles and choir music as well as it being a smaller church helped make it so welcoming and beautiful. 

Both of those mini hikes wore us out so we pretty much stayed on the bus and listened to the guide as we drove around the city and saw the rest of the sites. Really happy we did the bus tour! 

The last day Cody and I went to see Gaudi's famous Sagrada Familia church. The outside has an very unique look to it (as usual), but there is a lot of symbolism and the inside was absolutely amazing. Sagrada Familia holds the record for being the longest building to ever be in construction- its been in construction for around 120 years I think. Once it is completed, it will be the largest cathedral in the world. They still have a lot of work to do though, so it might be awhile before that happens.. But as of now they have most of the inside part finished and it is so unique and incredible. Turns out to be another one of my favorite churches (on the inside). 

Front of Sagrada Familia

The rainbow stain glass inside

Inside of the church

We spent the rest of the day on the beach relaxing and headed back to Prague the next morning for one final day then made our journey home on Wednesday morning. Hard to believe my study abroad is already over! :(