Gaudi's Spain

The city of Barcelona really does belong to Gaudi.  Culturally, aesthetically, architecturally.  He left his stamp on this city and whenever people think of it, they generally think of his style.  Everywhere in the city, you can see imitations of his style and his masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia dominates the Barcelona skyline.

No first time visitor to Barcelona can avoid his works and so Phil and I both lined up to pay homage to this famed architect.  

My initial impressions weren't positive.

Standing in front of the cathedral, you feel overawed by its size.  It's a huge structure, but that being said, there have been other cathedrals I've stood in front of which have felt more imposing.  Looking at the detail, I also didn't quite get it.  There was no doubt that the design was incredibly unique and it was nothing like any other cathedral I had seen before.  As much as a looked at it though, I didn't really see the beauty in it.  It looked like it had been made from sand and I didn't like the shape of it at all.  Even in its state of ongoing construction, there was something very unfinished about the structure, even the parts that were meant to be complete.  It felt like blasphemy to have these thoughts, but when I looked over at Phil he seemed to be equally unimpressed.

The line to get in moved slowly.  Thankfully we had arrived early, the number of people in the line behind us continued to grow well past where had started.  At last, we got to go inside.

My attitudes switched completely when I was inside the cathedral.

I found the inside of the Sagrada Familia to be worthy of being described as breath taking.  It was a bright and open space, with thin white pillars that seemed almost alien in their design.  They reached high into the ceiling like some otherworldly trees, with branches spreading out to hold up the roof.  The intricacies which I found to be a bit strange and unattractive on the outside of the building were stunningly beautiful on the inside.  Every other cathedral I had ever been to was generally quite dark on the inside.  There would be certain sections which were a bit more lit up, but in general they weren't places that shone with natural light.  The Sagrada Familia on the other hand welcomes the light in.  The stained glass windows are unsurprisingly enormous and lovely, but when combined with the whiteness of the stone they seemed to give the entire interior a lovely glow.

I couldn't help but think about all of the sci-fi movies and space operas I had watched over the years.  The interior of this cathedral felt like something from one of those movies, like it was a monument built by some advanced civilisation who had skills and engineering far exceeding what we had now.  I thought about it a bit more and realised that my thinking was probably back to front.  This cathedral wasn't like those movies, it was those movies that were in fact like this cathedral!  This cathedral was itself the inspiration to all of those other artists, writers and directors and not vice-versa.

We had bought tickets which would let us go to the top.  That's one thing about my travels I've always done, I've always tried to get to the top if at all possible.  Most European cities are quite low, so the top of the cathedrals often offer the best vantage spot to see the entire city.  The Sagrada Familia was no different.  When we reached the top, we could see far out into the distance of Barcelona.

We left the Sagrada Familia and continued our "Gaudi tour".  We caught the suburb a bit further out to have a look at Park Guell.

The entire park was built and designed by Gaudi, so everything had his unique style and look.  From a location perspective, it was also a great place to see Barcelona as it's set on a hill looking across Barcelona all the way to the ocean.  Everything building, staircase, monument and statue was "Gaudi".  There were no hard lines or corners, everything was curved and flowing.  There were also lots of examples of the mosaics that Gaudi loved to apply to his works.  I still wasn't sure if I really liked it all that much, but I was definitely starting to appreciate it more.  Like the Sagrada Familia, it was just such a unique approach to design.  It all felt and looked more natural, it looked like the structures belonged to the landscape and had grown from their surroundings rather than merely being imposed into nature.  It again made me think of some sci-fi movies I had watched and I really did wonder how much of an inspiration he had been for many of their writers.

By this stage in the day we were tired.  Well... I was tired.  I always prided myself in my ability to walk non-stop when traveling, but Phil more than had my measure.  We were in Spain, so eventually I had to say "no mas".  I needed food.  We walked down from the park and wandered into the first churreria we saw.  It seemed legitimate enough and when we checked on our phones, it turned out to be one of the most highly regarded churrerias in the city.  We were the only people in the shop and the man behind the counter made our orders fresh.  We picked up the still hot churros and when we bit into them they still had a satisfying crunch.  Combined with the small cup of hot and thick chocolate, it was pick me up I needed to keep walking.

We managed to walk most of the way back to the Gothic Quarter.  It was a long walk, but it gave us a chance to see the city.  Once you leave the main areas, everything clears out significantly and it starts to feel like any other city, albeit with prettier architecture.  We had been given a strong recommendation to go and visit a restaurant near our apartment called "Cal Pep", so we went back to the apartment to change before heading over.

Cal Pep itself is a bit strange, it's half restaurant and half bar.  The most famous part is probably the open bar area where you sit and see the food being prepared in front of you.  There isn't really a fixed menu and you are served the seafood that the chefs considered to be the best choices out of the market that day.  We waited in line to get a seat at the bar.  The line was long, but everyone was quite happy to sit along the back wall and experience the laughter and banter from the chefs and waiters in front.  They were loud and they were enjoying themselves.  Even as we waited, we weren't ignored and we were able to order bottles of wine to help with the wait.  It's probably the only time I've ever enjoyed lining up.

After we finished our bottle, we reached the front of the line and we were seated at the bar.  The long wait is probably one of the best methods for Cal Pep to drive its business, as watching a variety of different dishes being served to those in front of us meant that we were ravenous.  Our friendly waiter brought us another bottle of wine and asked us what we wanted.  "Chef's choice" was our response, imitating what most others seemed to also chose.  My only requirement was that I wanted one of the plates to be razor clams (though I think they're actually called jackknife clams).  The waiter seemed more than happy with our choice.

The food was as advertised.  Everything was as fresh as I had hoped and just as well cooked.  Each dish was an example of the best that the region's sea had to offer.  I got my clams, we had langoustines, calamari, fish .... all of it cooked to push the fresh flavour of the ingredient.  The waiter was great and continued to joke with us throughout the meal.  The one time he was more serious was when he brought out my razor clams (jackknife clams?), he changed into an instructor and told us that we weren't to use our knives.  He motioned to eat each of the whole clams in one go.  We obeyed his commands, pulled each clam out of its shell by hand and ate them in one mouthful.  His guidance had been right.  After everything arrived and was devoured, Phil looked at me and asked "one more dish?"  Seemed like a good idea.  We asked for one more plate and the waiter arranged it all with a smile.

We hadn't yet reached the point of too much of a good thing, so pushing it a bit further seemed to be the way to go.