And finally – it’s Hola Barcelona!
Saturday 29 June
After yesterday’s debacle, we were definitely having an easy start to our Barcelona adventure, so we began with a leisurely walk from our hotel into the El Born district. A lovely corner of Barcelona, it has those delightful characteristic narrow streets and quaint squares with cafés, plus lots of charming little shops. It was great just chancing upon these little boutique shops housing everything from chocolates, to jewellery, beachwear and fashion. My favourite though was the Art Shop which showcased all manner of prints, postcards and books on Salvadore Dalí, Antoni Gaudí and Pablo Picasso, it was a riot of wonderful colours. The heart of this district is the Passeig del Born – the “square” which is actually oblong and dates back to medieval times when the Born (Catalan for jousting field) hosted tournaments and jousting matches. It was also the site of the Holy Week processions and early carnivals. The most famous building in this district is the beautiful Santa Maria del Mar church, built in 55 years from 1329 to 1384 and the only surviving church in the pure Catalan Gothic style.
We had a delicious brunch and spent most of the afternoon just wandering down these little streets, every corner revealing an amazing building with beautiful architecture. We also checked out one of Spain’s most well-known department stores El Corte Inglés before making our way back to our hotel via the beautiful Parc de la Ciutadella - and what a treat that was….the Font de la Cascada with its triumphal arch and steps and quadriga – a golden four horse chariot, water-spouting griffins, and the mythical Greek water gods of Neptune, Leda, Amphitrite and Danaë. The Parc’s grounds were landscaped by architect Josep Fontsére in the early 1870’s and in 1888 it was chosen as the site of the Exposició Universal de Barcelona, Spain’s first International World Fair, and because of this, improvements were made which included the fancy Castle of the Three Dragons and the Arc To Triomf which served as the main entrance to the fair. It was really interesting strolling through and seeing all the sculptures and busts of renowned Spaniards, including that of Joan Prim y Prat, a Spanish soldier, politician and Prime Minister of Spain for only two years from 1869 to 1870 when he was assassinated. He is depicted in a bronze equestrian statue surrounded by reliefs of his military campaigns.
An easy, very tasty, dinner in the restaurant of our hotel, before we haded back to our room and a well-deserved early night.
Sunday 30 June
A lazy start today and another wander around El Born and down the famous La Rambla, the most well-known, tree-lined, street in central Barcelona which connects to the Plaça de Catalunya home to the Christopher Columbus Monument at Port Vell. The Spanish poet Federico García Lorca once said that La Rambla was “the only street in the world which I wish would never end” and you can understand why. It is lined with restaurants, beautiful shops, markets, and iconic cultural institutions and has the most beautiful view of the Mediterranean filled with yachts, superyachts and launches. This is where the six America’s Cup Teams’ bases are located getting ready to challenge for the 37th Cup taking place here starting with the Louis Vuitton Challenger Selection Series on 22 August and ending with the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup Match starting 12 October - this is between the holders of the Cup, Team New Zealand, representing the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, and the winner of the Challenger Series. We were lucky enough to see Team New Zealand’s boat, Taihoro, coming back into the base after one of its many practices on the water.
Monday 1 July
Well, despite the fact we were visiting one of the most famous Roman Catholic Cathedrals in the world this morning, sadly the Gods were not shining on us. We awoke to pouring rain and by the time we reached the Sagrada Familia, it was thundering and lightning! Sagrada Familia is the largest unfinished Catholic cathedral in the world. The original design for the project was by diocesan architect Francisco de Paula del Villar in 1882, following the guidelines of the time, with the neo-Gothic elements of ogival (curved and pointed) windows, buttresses, flying buttresses and a pointed bell tower. However, technical differences about the cost of materials, led him to be replaced with another architect who was starting to stand out in his field - Antoni Gaudí. He took the project in a different direction, transforming it into an ambitious proposal for the church of the future and combined Gothic and curvilinear Art Nouveau forms. He worked on it until his death in 1926 and is buried in the church’s crypt; at the time of his death, less than a quarter of the project was complete. Its construction progressed slowly, interrupted by the Spanish Civil War and in July 1936, anarchists set fire to the crypt and broke their way into the workshop, partially destroying Gaudí's original plans. In 1939, Francesc de Paula Quintana took over site management, which was able to go on with the material that was saved from Gaudí's workshop.
Construction resumed with intermittent progress in the 1950s and advancements in technology such as computer-aided design have since enabled faster progress and construction passed the midpoint in 2010. In 2014, it was anticipated that the building would be completed by 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death, but this schedule was threatened by work slowdowns caused by the 2020–2021 Covid pandemic. In March 2024, an updated forecast reconfirmed a likely completion of the building in 2026, though the announcement stated that work on sculptures, decorative details and a controversial proposed stairway leading to what will eventually be the main entrance is expected to continue until 2034! That’s a build taking over 150 years!!!! An interesting fact…the construction of this cathedral is self-funding. With the reasonably high cost of the admission tickets to view the cathedral and the enormous amount of sightseers that pay for them, they rake in over Euros 200 million per year.
An awesome sight greeted us as we rounded the corner to the entrance despite the ongoing building involving cranes. When we entered inside it was nothing short of breathtaking – the photos don’t do it justice, the vibrant colours of the stained-glass windows are unbelievable, they have been done using an innovative system called trichromy. This is a composition with four superimposed pieces of glass, one in each of the three primary colours – yellow, cyan and magenta, and a fourth, transparent piece as a seal. By breaking down the colour and transposing the drawing into its component layers, Gaudí aimed to give the sensation of depth in the drawings as if they were in three dimensions. I can’t possibly go into detail about everything we saw in this beautiful place, about the actual construction of the building itself and how amazingly vibrant the colours are, despite the dark clouds outside, so I’m just going to upload some photographs and you can google the rest of it yourselves!!!!
Our visit here was to be one of the highlights of our holiday in Barcelona and I was really looking forward to it, having purchased the tickets months ago – an absolute necessity at this time of the year - I also paid extra so we could visit one of the towers – a choice of two, the Passion or the Nativity. I chose the Nativity as I thought it would be more uplifting than the Passion which is apparently very austere. Having unluckily picked the only day this week it was pouring with rain to visit the cathedral and also booked our visit for early in the morning so it wouldn’t be so hot, we were thwarted when we went to go up into the Nativity Tower – due to the thunder and lightning, specifically located around the side of the Nativity Tower, our entrance was denied. Only the Passion Tower was open, and our ticket could not be transferred. No chance to revisit either this week as all tickets are booked out. We have been rather jinxed the last few days, that’s for sure. The lightning was flashing, and the thunder crashing and the rain was so heavy it was impossible for us to leave the cathedral as we were only wearing light summer clothes, however, it wasn’t that hard a place to sit and wait it out, those magnificent stained glass windows, the incredible crucifix suspended over the altar accompanied by a beautiful rendition of “Ave Maria” made it very bearable.
This afternoon we made our way to the Passeig de Gracia – Barcelona’s equivalent of New York’s Fifth Avenue and Paris’s Champs-Élysées – what a treat, elegant shops set in unique architectural heritage buildings by renowned Spanish architects such as Antoni Gaudí, Josep Puig i Cadafalch, Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Enric Sagnier, where in the early days the aristocracy and bourgeoisie had their mansions. We had a great few hours’ window shopping and enjoying the ambience of this wonderful cosmopolitan city.
