DAY 2: Gaudi's works, Barcelona

Having eaten a very "delicious" breakfast inside the hotel room, I started my first day in Barcelona (Oh btw, the "delicious breakfast" was a piece of a very long French Bread, together with a litre of OJ that had so much preservatives that it didn't go bad for 3 days without a fridge. The bread was so long or rather, so delicious that it served as my breakfast for 3 days!), the meeting time with Vicky and Kit were not until 11:00 so I decided to go to see the Barri Gotic Area first.

Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter) is the old town of Barcelona and as the name implies, there are many old Gothic buildings there. The first stop was Barcelona Cathedral. It was my first Cathedral visit since Paris' Notre Dame in 1993 (yes, I have been to many churches and chapels since then, but the sheer size and atmosphere of a cathedral was just not quite the same!) Anyway the outside of the cathedral was really disappointing because the front was covered up with scaffolding as it was under renovation(?). The interior, to my surprise, was quite impressive. Highlights included the sarcophagus of Saint Eulalia lying in the crypt below the altar, which you could have a quick "peep" if you put in a euro to turn on the light. (or you can peep while other generous souls put in the Euro for the lights)

Well, time passed by and soon I had to rush back to Las Ramblas to meet the duo. It turned out that they had to move their beds again for no obvious reason, so they had to stay in the hostal for the whole morning for the arrangement.

Today we dedicated ourselves to Gaudi. First we headed off to Casa Batllo where there was a dragon (the dragon from St. George's and the dragon) lying on the roof top and windows that resembled human skulls. The creepy feeling did not put us off from entering the building but it turned out it was the EUR 16.80 entrance fee that kept us from it.

So we decided to try our luck next with Casa Mila, famous for the wavy exterior and the exotic chimneys(?) and fortunately(?) the entrance fee was only EUR 8. It was originally an apartment (casa means house) that had turned into some kind of museum describing Gaudi's works and how his ideas came... well at least one thing was true, Gaudi didn't like straight lines in his architectural works.. that's why almost all his works were all curvy and wavy. (hmmm.... maybe he could ask somebody to lend him a ruler at that time?)

We were supposed to meet Vicky's friend (Wendy or Sandy I forgot, sorry! [It was Doris actually, I confirmed with Vicky at last!] and her spanish boyfriend Alex) at La Sagrada Familia but as usual we were half an hour late while indulging ourselves in Casa Mila. Another reason of being late was because on the way to Sagrada we were arguing whether the "wire mesh" on top of Fundacio Tapies was really a piece of sculpture or just some barbed wire fence.

La Sagrada Familia (ie the church of the holy family) (EUR 8) is also known as the unfinished church because it still is in progress and won't be finished for at least another 50 years. It was this building that Gaudi dedicated his last years and his entire wealth into it. There were 3 facades (two were complete?) and each side has sculptures that tells of different events of the life of Jesus. E.g. The Nativity Facade told of the birth of Jesus and the the Passion Facade told of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

The very tall "ice-cream cones" (spires/towers) of the building were open to public and you could either go up by an escalator (EUR 2) or by climbing the stairs (Free).... So the five "energetic" youths decided to wait 30 minutes to queue up for the stairs and spent another 45 minutes climbing the spires. There was really nothing to see at the top except a good panoramic view of Barcelona and the Agbar Torre (Agbar Tower) , that resembles an organ of a male.(Coincidentally, this tower was the headquarter of a water company, no wonder they chose this shape while designing their headquarter)

Lunch was around 14:30 and Alex took us to a local restaurant nearby. A 3 course meal+drink only costed EUR 8.5. The menu was in Spanish and even though Alex did his best to explain what the choices were, we were still confused (maybe the art of Spanish Cuisine could not be easily described in words) so at the end we all had a good laugh of what the dish turned out to be. Nevertheless the food was true local! (i.e. had a non-touristic flavour!)

After the meal (well for local Spanish, lunch is around 14:30, dinner around 22:00 as the sun did not set until then), Alex and Wendy had to head off because of his dad's birthday party, so the rest of us continued our Gaudi's tour with Parc Guell.

Parc Guell (close resemblance to but wrongly pronounced as Àt), was a park with architectural elements made by Gaudi. Btw the name Guell came from Count Eusebi Guell who constantly sponsored Gaudi for his works. The park was in Barcelona city but nowhere near any of the metro stations. We already had a tip-off by Alex to enter from the back (there were long and steep escalators that took us through the steep hill) but still, with weather as hot as 38+ C, we were totally toasted and roasted while visiting the park (With this weather, it was not surprising to find wild cacti in the park... thought we were in the wild wild west for a minute)

The highlight of the park I should say was the mosaic lizard at the front (also somehow became the mascot of Gaudi's work) and the curvy mosaic serpentine bench in the main square. (One of the longest benches in the world) Every visitor who went there ended up sitting in there. (maybe also because they were all tired out from the climbing and the heat)

It's dinner time again and it seems that the duo were still "addicted" to Spanish Supermarket's food but I thought I should try something else. So I chose the open-air restaurant along the Las Ramblas and decided to try out the famous Spanish paella... I chose the black Arroz Negro (EUR 15) (which was not a wise choice actually... no wonder I have never seen it outside Spain before)

It turned out the restaurant that I visited belonged to a chinese restaurant across the street, and the paella was from a company called OK paella (franchised across Spain)... well so much for visiting a local restaurant and eating local Spanish food!

One of the advantages of sitting out in the open for meals was that there should be an abundance of Spanish girls walking around you while you ate.. sadly speaking it seemed that they too preferred to sit down for dinner elsewhere at that time. Only the tourists and the street performers still roamed the street at that time!

So with nothing much to see and disappointed with my Sino-Espanol paella, I decided to go back to the hotel for some World Cup. There was no TV in the hotel rooms in my hotel and everyone had to stick to a small TV in the common room (reminded me of the good old days in the university halls) and I was just in time to watch France beat Portugal. Yes!(Well I was an England's fan.... for those who couldn't remember, Portugal sent England back home!)

France beat Portugal 1-0!

My foot prints: Barcelona Cathedral, Casa Batllo, Casa Mila, Sagrada Familia, Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau, Parc Guell

Stay: Opera Hostal, Barcelona (EUR 43, single room)

PS. This morning I received a long distance phonecall from my cleaner that there was a leakage in my salt water pipe in the toilet at home, and water was flooding everywhere... Luckily she had asked someone to fix it... still it was an aweful timing for this to happen (never happened before while I was in HK), this really spoiled my trip!