Explore europe in a campervan

After leaving Tarifa we drove directly to Barcelona. Going inland the temperature was very high and we understood why the Spanish tend to have a mass exodus to the coast during the height of the summer. The following morning we set off earlier to avoid some of the hottest part of the day and had a slightly more comfortable drive. We briefly met my friend and work colleague Andy who is holidaying in Spain with his wife, Sarah, and their family. They had spent several days in the city and assured us we should try to have a look around, which we planned to do if we could park.

The last time we visited Barcelona was in early May when Simon joined a stag party of friends from Bournemouth. On that occasion we drove around the city searching for a car park but, finding them all full, ended up parking on the side of the road – FREE – in the gardens on the hill above the city. It seemed too good to be true so we were very surprised to find lots of spaces on the same road. There’s a funicular railway from the gardens into the city centre – an angled train that runs up and down the steep slope of a hill – so it was an easy trip down and we were soon on ‘Las Ramblas’ – the famous tree-lined avenue.

Las Ramblas is a long road that runs north from the port. It’s partly pedestrianised and lined by hotels and restaurants with tables in the middle of the avenue where a lot of people-watching happens. There is a small market and several artists selling their pictures or creating ‘street-art’ portraits, but the main attractions are the living statues. I’ve seen them before but they usually pose without moving as though they are real statues. In Barcelona they interact with the people having photos taken with them and draw big crowds. They varied from aliens, fairies, Indians and a voodoo mask – ‘alive’ in a box to more traditional statues that appeared to be made out of stone, marble and bronze. We had tapas for dinner in a square just off the Ramblas.

The next day we had little time so after some brief research in an internet café we jumped on the metro (modern and with air-conditioned trains!) to go to see some buildings designed by the architect Gaudi. The first was Sagrada Familia; a church commissioned in the late 1800s which is still under construction. The estimated timescale for completion is between 30 and 80 years – typically vague of builders! It’s hard to describe such an awesome building and the pictures hardly do it justice. Gaudi’s style is unique and includes shapes and themes from nature in the carving of the stones and a huge amount of detail. He is most famous for using colour in his buildings with spires and rooves covered in ceramic tiles. The coloured, mosaic tiling is very distinctive and can be seen on souvenirs not just in Barcelona, but all over Spain.

The second Gaudi building we visited was Casa Batillo. The front of this house is between two ordinary buildings on a typical city street but it’s amazing. The use of curved stone work makes it look like the lower pillars of the house are bones and the balconies look like huge skulls at a glance – they reminded me of one of my favourite film – The Nightmare Before Christmas – which has a skeleton as the lead character. From pictures we had seen the interior of this house looks even more impressive, but at €16 entrance fee per person, and with time pressures we had to make do with gazing at the outside. In comparison the cathedral was rather less impressive – covered in scaffolding and without the unique features of the Gaudi buildings. But Barcelona didn’t disappoint us and there was much more we’d have liked to see.

Despite being pretty tired after pounding the pavements for the day we pushed on as planned and crossed the border into France late at night, settling for the night at the motorhome ‘aire’ in Leucate.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 7:56 pm and is filed under Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.