Our third day in Barcelona it was my birthday! So we took it a little easier so we weren’t so exhausted like the day before. The first sight we saw today was the Picasso Museum. In this museum you can see how the artist’s artwork changed and developed to the cubism that he is famous for. It was a very nice organized museum, divided into the eras of different types of artwork. We spent a good two hours in the museum and headed off to another Gaudí masterpiece, Hospital Sant Pau di Maig.

When we arrived at the hospital, we could see La Sagrada Familia, from the front of the hospital and realized we could’ve just walked there from the church yesterday if we wanted to. We took pictures of the hospital and unfortunately missed the last tour time but took our own initiative and walked around the hospital grounds on our own.

After the hospital we went to Gaudí’s very first building in Barcelona, Casa Vicens, which is currently privately owned and we couldn’t enter the home. When we got to the house we couldn’t believe that someone actually lived in that house and how much they must have paid for to own the home.

As we continued our easygoing day, we went to Barcelona’s beach, Barceloneta. Luckily, it had its own metro stop and we started walking on the beach boardwalk towards the beach itself. Barcelona’s beach reminded us a lot of Santa Monica’s Venice Beach. Our daughter nearly ran towards the beach as she doesn’t have access to any bodies of water in Madrid, and living in California with a beach that is 10 minutes away, not living with the beach is very hard to get used to. The funny part? Our daughter grew up west of Toronto, where winter is around more than 50% of the year with only three months of sunshine.

At the beach we met a man that was half Catalan and half Iranian. Sadly he had Parkinson’s disease so speaking to us in Farsi was very difficult for him. He was a very nice man and helped us out, telling us some history about Barcelona, the differences between Madrid and Barcelona and told us some sights to see if we have time in Barcelona and some more in Madrid.

When we got back to the apartment we were so tired that we just packed up for the next day and got ready to leave for Granada. But before we leave tomorrow, were going to FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou Stadium.

Barcelona Day 3 Image Gallery

We had an early start on our second day in Barcelona at 9:30am in the La Sagrada Familia. Luckily, our daughter was thinking ahead and bought all our tickets to everything we had planned for the next two days the first night in Barcelona so that we wouldn’t waste time waiting in the lines. Everything we saw this day was works of Antoni Gaudí.

When we got to La Sagrada Familia, we couldn’t believe that it was as big as it looked. We saw pictures on Google but those pictures most definitely did not justify the church at all. We’ve been told that the lines for the La Sagrada Familia get so long that if you can get in, you’re lucky. Guess we were the lucky ones and we got to experience the church first-hand and we were completely mesmerized! Again, another masterpiece by the Spanish/Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudí, and the saddest part we learned about the church was that he was recognized for being the architect the day after he died.

We had tickets to go up to the top of the church and got to see some of the most remarkable skylines in Barcelona. Majority of the church overlooked the entire city and at the end of the day we realized that the church was the center of all the Gaudí pieces in the city. Since Gaudí died before he was able to finish the church, the Sagrada Familia was left unfinished. Currently, there is a team of architects that are completing the plans that Gaudí left, but on the prototypes of the completed church, it looks like its going to take a very long time for them to finish building everything.

After the church we went to La Pedrera, which was within walking distance and relatively close. La Pedrera looked like a massive home, but in reality it was an apartment building that Gaudí built for the very wealthy Catalan Milà Family. When we walked into the building, it was surprisingly actually in the shape of an oval and the ground floor was an open area and when you looked up to the sky there were windows of all the rooms surrounding you.

What I like the most about Spain is that the government cares a lot and puts a significant amount of their budget towards the maintenance of historical and cultural monuments. In La Pedrera, we were able to see all the original furniture from when Gaudí first built the home. In fact, there was one floor dedicated to the work of Gaudí and where all his influence for his architecture came from, and surprisingly his architecture was very much influenced by nature and the textures of our earth. For example the shape of a sponge influenced the roof of La Pedrera and the shape of a tree trunk influenced the columns of the home. As we continued throughout the home we went to the very top leading to the terrace and overlooking the city. The terrace of the apartment was similar to the terrace of the Palau Güell.

We took a break for lunch and then after we headed to Park Güell, which was also built for the same family of the Palau Güell. Here we saw another true masterpiece of Gaudí, the whole park in general and more specifically the design of the seats and the famous salamander and lizard head situated in the front of the park. From the top of the park where seats with the colorful textiles, we saw another beautiful view of Barcelona. We took pictures of the park and continued to our last destination of the day, Casa Batlló.

Casa Batlló was another piece of Gaudí’s that was requested by a wealthy Catalan Family in Barcelona. In fact, this house is still property of the great grandchildren of the Batlló family and “all proceeds go to maintaining the home” since they get no help from the government because its still privately owned. All the walls of the floors leading to the top were blue or had blue tiles and at night the house lit up blue. Next to the home was Casa Amattler, which is famous for the artwork in the rooftop.

Everything we saw of Gaudí was remarkably impressive and at the end of the day we realized that Barcelona is beautiful because of Gaudí’s influence throughout the city and even his influence in the structure of other buildings.

Barcelona Day 2 Image Gallery

Our first day in Barcelona was filled with lots of sightseeing! Since we arrived in Barcelona by 12:30pm, we had all day to explore the city! We rented an apartment this time in Barcelona instead of a hotel room and it was perfect! We were situated right in the city center on the famous street in Barcelona, La Rambla, and this gave us access to everything! Also our metro line (L3) connected easily to other main lines for the main sights such as, La Sagrada Familia and La Pedrera.

Before we had lunch we went to Plaça d’Espayna, which is a beautiful plaza situated exactly in the center of Barcelona. Unfortunately, our first try at Spanish tapas and paella was a complete disaster. We should’ve listened to our daughter and not tried the paella or tapas on La Rambla because it’s a main tourist area. Apparently that’s a rule of thumb all throughout Spain, that in the main cities such as, Madrid or Barcelona NEVER eat at the restaurants in the touristy areas because they are the worst and the most expensive.

After lunch we went to Palau Güell, which is a palace built by the genius Spanish/Catalan architect, Antoni Gaudí, for the Güell family. This palace was incredible! The best part of it was that we saw the palace everyday from our balcony window in our apartment! Gaudí’s architecture and design was like nothing that any of us had seen before! My daughter was more familiar with him because of his influence in Spanish architecture throughout the country. Once we left the palace we went to the Mercado de Sant Josep, which is a outdoor market in Barcelona. It reminded us a lot of the markets in Tehran, and the fruit and vegetables were amazingly delicious. We had some freshly made fruit juice and bought some big, fat and juicy strawberries. If we spent any longer in the market, we would’ve lost the whole day walking around fruit, vegetable, meat and fish, so we decided to move on.

Since we bought a significant amount of food from the market we stopped by the apartment and left everything there. This was the beauty of having our own apartment! We took a nice walk to the Mirador de Colom, which is the official statue of Christopher Columbus, or as the Spanish say, Cristobol Colón. Fortunately for us it was right by the port and we continued our walk to the Plaça de Reil, which was Barcelona’s equivalent to Plaza Mayor in Madrid. Gaudí also built the lanterns in this plaza. As we continued to walk around Barcelona we ended up in Plaça de Jaume and saw the Barcelona Cathedral, which was gothic influenced. Luckily we got to see a live service at the cathedral and heard it performed in three languages: Spanish, Catalan and Latin.

The rest of the night we walked around Barcelona and did some shopping. When we got back to the apartment we got ready for a packed day the next day.

Barcelona Day 1 Image Gallery