What to do in Barcelona (Besides Eat Tapas)

The Spanish have quite a sense of whimsy and humor.  Think Salvador Dali and his melting watches,and the car outside his museum where it rains inside the car.   You have not seen Barcelona unless you have visited Antoni Gaudi's Guell Park, several of his buildings, and ultimately the fascinating (and still incomplete) La Sagrada Familia, the cathedral he designed.

Briefly, the Guell Park was sponsored by Gaudi's frequent patron Eusebi Guell. Imagine Tim Burton meeting Hansel and Gretel and you get a glimmer of what this park is like.  Originally, the design was to be a planned community.  Sitting at the top of a hill overlooking Barcelona and the Mediterranean, the view is spectacular.  Bring a lunch or buy one at the cafe and sit on the curvilinear bench which surrounds the park.  It's made of Gaudi's signature tiny, colorful mosaics.  There are sea themes throughout the park; another one of his trademarks.  Still another is his willingness to forgo corners.  He uses no straight lines.

My favorite building to visit is Casa Batllo, although many disagree. His Casa Mila is more well-known and some say a better design. I don't think so.  The best view of Casa Batllo is from across the street.  The facade is completely made of wrought iron and mosaics that glitter and change throughout the day as the pieces catch the different lights and shadows.  That view is free.  But pay the small fee and take the tour to go inside.  The rooftop alone is worth the price of admission.  Walt Disney must have visited here and been inspired.  There is a dragon's back made of sparking tile and ceramics.  There is a ceramic cross that shines and glints in the sun.  Chimneys are made of more ceramics and tiny colored pieces form abstracts that seem to dance in the light.

Inside, sea themes predominate, as do archways, parabolas, and curves, curves, curves.  It's an easy walk from here to Casa Mila.  They are both worth seeing.

Gaudi’s buildings were part of what became known as the Modernisme style of architecture and Casa Batllo and Casa Mila are two incredible examples of the movement.  You can see other examples all over Barcelona and I recommend you spend one to two days at least, if you an architecture freak, which I happen to be.

Gaudi’s most incredible achievement is his design for La Sagrada Familia, the church where he spent the last years of his life.  It is still incomplete and the city hopes to have it finished within the next twenty-five years.  No one hurries in Europe, but the money has dripped in slowly and is now coming solely from the fees to enter the church and from the tours.

Although there is an amazing amount to see on your own, I recommend taking the tour.  The guide will explain why the façade of the building facing north looks like an entirely different building than the one facing south.  Inside, the nave looks like a marble forest.  Indeed, Gaudi was trying to make everything seem natural, holistic, and like it came from nature.  Some, but not all, of the windows are complete.  Gaudi’s love of light is so extreme that I had a difficult time taking photos because there was so much light inside. 

A visit to the roof yields amazing views.  A visit to the basement will allow you into the museum where you see a demonstration of how Gaudi invented a new concept in structural architecture.  Instead of using the traditional flying buttress for support (like Notre Dame in Paris), he experimented with chains and weights to see how much arch would support how much weight before the entire thing would collapse.  Once he had his dimensions, he flipped the whole concept upside down and made it in concrete, marble and magic.  I’m sure there is a better explanation from physical science and engineering, but you get the idea.

The entire cathedral is magical.  The complexity of the façade depicting the Nativity is worthy of hours of staring.  The Passion façade on the opposite side of the building is, by contrast, stark and certainly doesn’t glamorize the suffering of Christ.  There are just so many details to absorb.  I’m still pondering the numerology puzzle that adds up to 33 any way you try it.   

More than paintings, sculpture, and traditional art, I think architecture is not simply aesthetic, but a lifestyle.  Gaudi defined Barcelona, its people, and its lifestyle.  I don’t see how you can visit the city and not spend some time learning about him and appreciating all he left behind.