Barcelona: Days 2 to ... oops out of time

Just finished packing for Berlin, my CPAP wife (Well, I sleep wif it done I?) snug and safe.

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Saturday, took the Blue bus that did the Gaudi Tour. First of all La Pedrera, one weird looking house, woah. Roof undulating, balconies sticking out with twisted iron balustrades, strange chipped texture on the external walls (must have taken ages to do this)...



Then back on the bus to Sagrada Familia... and was suitably and completely overawed. Fucking amazing place. The way Gaudi "designed" it, by hanging links of connected chains and seeing where gravity took them, then inverting that model to create a self supporting structure, was pure genius.


Look at this upside down.

My question for all of these buildings; how did Gaudi get council approval to build such structurally innovative designs? For Sagrada Familia, they said he didn't even submit the architectural blueprints with all the mathematics of the loads, etc... calculated, he just gave them drawings and they approved. Way!

Here are just a few of the photos. If you want more, just Google it, I'm saving cloud-space here.


In the middle years of my life, I found myself lost in the forest of Gaudi, for I had strayed from the audio-guide path...

Dripping concrete? Out there dude!

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On the way back to Placa Catalanya, the road was blocked again, and we had to be dropped off a few hundred metres from the square (back at La Pedrera actually). This time it wasn't the absence of people that was interesting, it was the crowd! Many young people in Barcelona FC shirts, kiddies, grandparents, everyone, all excited and tooting horns and chanting.

I kept negotiating my way down towards the Placa but the crowd became more dense, spilling on to the streets, even though cars were trying to get through. Eventually I was blocked at an intersection. The people here were looking down this street expectantly, excitedly, the tension palpably growing.

A line of mounted crowd-control police slowly edged the crowd pack to the footpaths. This looked a bit scary, but the crowd had no problems, the horses were calm, the cops were smiling. Then a line of police vans, then a line of those brick shithouses I mentioned the other day, and then, cheering and whooping and jumping and flag waving...

A blue open topped bus slowly paraded down... The word "Campions" was blazoned across its front and two large cups were perched up top. Behind these cups, the players themselves were jumping and yelling, tossing drinks over each other. I was so lucky to stumble on this...


Campions!

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Oops time running out, have to check out, head for lunch, then taxi to the airport. Hope I can get some time to describe this terrific town more before the sights and emotions of Berlin swamp them...

E@L