On Holy Saturday, aka Easter Even, we continued powering through the jet lag, sleep deprivation, etc., undertaking rides on the Barcelona BusTouristic, a hop-on/hop-off affair that takes you past some of the city's major sights. We are too old for hopping, and with nearly 3 weeks here and the combo city transportation pass, we'll visit the things that interest us in due course. We thought the BusTouristic might provide a restful review/overview of the city, an elevated view of some the modernista structures that interest us, some photo opps, a chance to learn proper pronunciation of some of the principal Catalan place names; and perhaps some amusement. In fifteen years of travel, this was our first hop-on/hop-off experience, and perhaps our last. Not a great value.
We did both routes: the blue (Eixample, Sagrada Familia, Sant Pau, Park Guell, the Pavellons Guell, FC Barcelona, the Diagonal Avenue, back to Plaza Catalunya) and the red (Eixample, Mont Juic and all its many sights, the Fundacio Joan Miro, Telepherique Mont Juic, the harbor sights, the Arc de Triomf, and then back to Plaza Catalunya). We did the red line more or less twice, thinking, the second day, we'd hop off at Mont Juic. But we didn't, hopping off instead at the harbor and walking back home via the Ribera and Bari Gotic neighborhoods, which offered a couple more posts. Photo opps from a moving bus, we discovered, were somewhat difficult. Hence, the following, somewhat random and imperfect pix mix, will not be on the quiz. We'll revisit many of the sights in more detail later.
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| Whizzing past Casa Battlo |
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Sculpture at the main 1992 Olympic site, mimicking the Olympic torch |
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| The Torch |
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Total eclipse of the sun as two gondolas approach on the Mont Juic
telepherique harbor station |
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| At the harbor marina, Chris Colon points the way |
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| 19th century water tower |
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| Butt of most of Barcelona's phallic jokes |
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| Look, kids, it's the Sangria Familia! |
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The modernista Hospital St. Pau, which we visited in 2013,
and which we just might visit again |
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| Random modernista |
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| Ditto |
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| Gothic cross, marking old city limits |
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| Spring is coming |
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Entrance to the Pavellons Guell (Guell was Gaudi's
major patron) |
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| Now at Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona |
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| Ice cream cone in FC Barcelona colors |
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| Camp Nou: the house that Messi built |
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| Oranges coming on strong, despite a drought |
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| More modernistas... |
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| ... |
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| ...and today's caryatids... |
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| La Rambla, on Holy Saturday, goes on a mile or so |
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| La Pedrera, we'll tour again in a couple days |
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A Miro sculpture of note; we'll do the Fundacion Joan Miro
also |
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Beyond the statue, Barcelona's bull-"fighting" arena, now a shopping
center with 100+ shops; Barcelona was the first Spanish city to ban
bull-"fighting" |
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Of the big three who originated from Barcelona--Dali, Picasso,
and Miro--we know little of Miro, but hope to remedy that on this
visit |
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| Wait! Are we back in DeSantisland?! |
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Only one cruise ship in port on Easter Sunday, but 8 more to arrive
on Tuesday, to disgorge 24,000 tourists on the city for a few hours...
cruisifixion, I call it |
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| Jacarandas coming on strong all around |
1 comment:
Beautiful city! We almost always take one of the tour buses the first day we arrive in a new city. A restful way to see major sites and decide where we want to spend more time.
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