Barcelona Day 2
September 27th, 2009woah. I am beat. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen most of this city in 2 days. After sleeping 11 hours last night, and a couple of cups of excellent coffee with breakfast, I headed outside… I started with a photo exhibit featuring contemporary Indian photographers’ work in a cultural center that was also displaying some of the giants used in parades here.
There was also another photo exhibit with locals’ work, and I couldn’t help but notice people all dressed alike again! I actually think these are groups of “tower builders” who make human towers during the festival that’s going on. I haven’t witnessed it, but I did read about it… Anyway, I got a shot of some of these folks looking at the exhibit
before being reprimanded for taking photos…
Then I headed to the northernmost part of the city to explore the Gràcia neighborhood and the Park Güell, another one of Gaudi’s madcap creations! As soon as I stepped above ground from the Metro, I noticed some more crazy architectural contrast…
After wandering around and climbing many many stairs, I was finally in the park.
Here’s a lookout area in the park:
and a close-up to show the tile work:
Under the lookout:
and the gates to one of the several entrances:
amazing.
After lunch, I headed back south in the city, and took a walk through to the Church of Santa Maria of the Sea, which unfortunately was closed, but was nice to walk around. I then got lost a little bit and ended up in Barceloneta, the area along the sea. There was a crafts market, and then further down, this statue that looked suspiciously like a Lichtenstein:
pretty sure it is…
I then headed out to the gardens of Montjuïc, where after much climbing I ended up at the castle. You can walk all around it for 360 degrees of Barcelona… I especially liked this view of shipping containers on the port:
It was a little hazy so unfortunately the amazing colors don’t show up in the photo…
And now I am off to look for some dinner!