Viaje a Barcelona (y visita con una amiga!)

Barcelona is thought to have been founded b ythe Carthaginians around 230 B.C. Since then, it has been occupied by the Romans, Muslims & Franks, the last of whom founded the house of the Counts of Barcelona in A.D. 878. Eventually, Catalonia, the kingdom in which Barcelona is located, launched its own fleet, & sea trade flourished & expanded as Malta, Athens, Corsica, Sardinia & Naples fell under Catalan dominance between the 13th & 15th centuries. Catalonia continued to develop its own culture & language separate from the rest of Spain.

When Ferdinand rose to power in 1479 & later married Isabel, Catalonia lost power. Later, Barcelona backed the wrong side in the War of the Spanish succession, & consequently, the writing & teaching of Catalan were banned. The late 19th century brought the Modernista movement, lavish buildings by artists like Antoni Gaudi, & the revival of Catalan language & culture. By the turn of the 20th century, Barcelona was Spain's hotbed of avant-garde art. In the 1930s, when Spain was struggling to find leadership, Catalonia declared itself a republic & founded a new regional government, but the city fell to Franco in 1939. After Franco's death, a new Spanish constitution created the autonomous community of Catalunya, with Barcelona as its capital. The city was further redeveloped to host the 1992 Olympics, after which the impetus to improve Barcelona's shabbier areas has not let up.


This weekend, I traveled to Barcelona to visit a friend from the States & to see the sights. When I landed in the airport, the first thing I noticed were the signs. The first language was neither Spanish nor English; it was Catalan. I knew I hadn't left the country, but I may as well have. I could understand the hybrid of Spanish & French hanging before me, but I certainly couldn't speak it. I took a shuttle bus to Placa Catalunya, where I encountered my second challenge of the weekend: the rain. I hadn't seen so much rain anywhere in Europe, Northern Ireland included, & it seriously hindered my ability to take way more photographs than are necessary. I stood under some trees in the Placa & watched the flock of pigeons, who didn't mind the downpour, as I waited for Rachael to meet me. She helped me buy a Metro pass, & we went to her apartment to drop off my stuff. Then, we braved the rain long enough for her to show me a few Modernist buildings & the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's still-under-construction masterpiece. When I realized it was raining too hard to even take pictures, we retreated to the apartment again. That evening, we went to the local China Bazar to buy cheap costumes & to the Indian supermarket for candy, & we celebrated Halloween with some of her friends.

Day 1 photos here.

Saturday, we slept in, which is something I'm not used to on my weekend trips. But it was wonderful to just relax a bit instead of running around trying to see everything. In the afternoon, we headed to Park Güell, which Gaudi was commissioned to build as a miniature garden city in 1900. The project was abandoned, but the landscaped gardens & several completed buildings remain on the mountain a century later. Next, we headed to Port Olímpic, where the water events of the '92 Olympics were held. Once we had defined the borders of Barcelona, we wandered toward the Torre Agbar, a giant cucumber-shaped building that is billed as the most visible landmark in the city. Then we headed back to the apartment, where Rachael cooked dinner & we spent the evening relaxing.

Day 2 photos here.

Sunday, I gave Rachael a break from her host duties & toured a bit on my own. I bought a day ticket for the overpriced Barcelona Bus Turístic, a hop-on/hop-off bus tour company, & embarked on the Blue Line. I braved the rain to visit the train station, the Palau Real & some of the Olympic facilities before I ran out of time. While I enjoyed sightseeing, the bus was actually a bigger hassle than I'd imagined. The audio commentary didn't announce the stops until the driver was braking, & the only button to request the stop was located by the exit doors. And since it was raining all day, few people actually wanted to leave the dry bus, so I had to wait for the second or third bus to pass by before I could find one with an empty seat. I'm glad I did the tour -- just seeing the Olympic stadium was amazing -- but there's still a lot of Barcelona I haven't seen. My final bus stop was near Las Ramblas, from which I walked to the Metro & rode back to the apartment to get my things. Rachael & I had lunch together, & then it was time to catch a bus to the airport. It was really nice to see a friend in this foreign place, but it was difficult for me to say goodbye & come back to Sevilla; it was the first time I felt like I was leaving something behind instead of heading toward "home."

Day 3 photos here.

Nos vemos, Le <3.