Sitges - Ten Hours in Barcelona

Yesterday Brett and I went into Barcelona to explore some of the main tourist sights. The train ride from Sitges was cheap and smooth and fairly scenic, as the line follows the coast for a lot of the route.

The first stop on arrival, after picking up a Metro pass, was El Corte Inglés, the premier department store chain in Spain. We weren’t there for the shopping, rather because the stores provide excellent free maps of the city centre and Metro system where they are located.

We also wanted lunch and quite fancied the scenic restaurant on the ninth floor of the store. However there was a queue to get in so in the end we went back out onto Plaça Catalunya and found ourselves a kind of fast-food tapas restaurant. Here I introduced Brett to the delights of Russian Salad and we each picked a few random tapas dishes. The deep-fried baby squid went down a treat but the octopus sprinkled with cayenne pepper was more of an acquired taste; not unpleasant, just an unusual flavour.

After lunch we took a stroll down La Rambla, Barcelona’s most famous avenue(s). I had done this some years ago while on a daytrip to the city and been rather disappointed. I had hoped that being better versed in what there is to see along the route would improve the experience, but in the end it did not; it’s a series of avenues filled with people selling birds, pavement art, flowers, etc – pretty much what you can get in Covent Garden or Times Square. Brett was similarly unimpressed.

We paused for coffee at the bottom of the Rambla, by the Columbus monument, and then took the metro into the new town to visit the Grand Expiatory Temple (that’s ‘Cathedral’ to you and me) of La Sagrada Família.

While I had been expecting it, the novelty of Gaudi’s design surprised Brett. We took some photos of the exterior and then bought entrance and an audio-guide. On my last visit I hadn’t had time to go inside and had only seen the exterior façades so I was quite surprised by how much of a building site it still is; there is scaffolding everywhere, architectural elements stacked on the floor waiting to be installed, the building is open to the weather; definitely still a work-in-progress.

The audio guide talks a lot about what the interior will be like when complete but it is difficult to visualise when you are standing there. It wasn’t until we got to the museum in the crypt and saw some of the plans, drawings and scale models that I realised quite how innovative and beautiful it is going to be when it is finished.

Everything about the design is inspired by natural forms; instead of traditional pillars branching into arches, Gaudi’s design has them branching like trees. Instead of gargoyles he has the shells of sea creatures. The roof will be filled with indirect skylights, giving lots of natural light in the interior. The sections which are complete are stunning; in the nave there is some beautiful stained glass already in place, in the cloisters the carving is almost like lace filigree and the two completed façades (the Nativity and the Passion), while completely different are very dramatic.

We chose to climb the towers rather than take the lift and the extra exercise was worth it, as there are lots of little viewing platforms built in to the towers as the staircases wind their way around and up, so you get lots of different views of both the completed and the unfinished work.

I wanted to stay nearby for dinner, so we could take some photographs of the façades when they are floodlit, so we ended up in a Pizza Express opposite the east end of the cathedral. As it turned out, although the flood lighting picked out a lot of the detail you lose in shadow during the day, I couldn’t capture it because I didn’t have a tripod to steady my camera. Oh well, next time!

For the photos that did come out okay, see here.