Tibidabo district

After spending the morning in Parc de la Ciutadella, where Barcelona held the 1888 World Exposition, we made our way north to Tibidabo where we lunched at El Asador de Aranda, a beautiful Castilian brasserie in what used to be a Modernist Catalan palace.  The restaurant reminded me of the houses we saw in Eixample, and the interior was designed in the same shattered tiles-style (trencadis) we saw in Park Guell.  During the course of our conversation, Alex told me I spoke “better Spanish than J Lo” to which M reacted in such a way that I thought I would have to practice the Heimlich Manuever.

We finished our trip at El Mirador de la Torre de Collserola from which we could see all of Barcelona including the Sagrada Familia, Sagrat Cor and Montserrat. 

Barcelona seems considerably changed since I was last there, and my cousins confirmed it for me.  The city is more diverse than when I visited in 2000 and is now the home of a myriad of immigrants from Morocco, Pakistan, and Columbia.  Evident from the Bollywood posters plastered all over La Rambla to the Filipino staff at Barcelonita, the city, like Paris, London, NYC and Copenhagen, now faces the challenges of supporting and assimilating immigrants from all over the world.    

Barceloneta Birthday Dinner

For dinner we met my extended family on my father’s side in Port Vell. I hadn’t seen Marta in seven years, since I was last in Barcelona, and I hadn’t seen Anna since she visited NYC in the fall of 2005. (The first time Anna visited NYC I introduced her to M who I had been dating for two months at the time. Mistakenly, I introduced him as “mi esposo” instead of “mi novio”). After feasting on mussels, calamari, grilled salmon and tuna tartar, we enjoyed ice cream on the beach.

Sagrada Familia

On our way back to Eixample, we stopped by Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral. What I find so unique about the cathedral is how Biblical stories usually told inside typical cathedrals are instead memorialized in sculptures that decorate the Sagrada Familia’s exterior.

Park Guell in the Gracia district

In the Gracia district, we visited the Park Guell, the highlight of the trip for me.  I had visited the park seven years ago with my extended family and was eager for M to see Gaudi’s “Candyland”-like architectural style… luckily, nothing had changed.  The view from the park made the walk uphill in ninety-degree heat worth it.  Near the park’s entrance is a staircase which is the home of Gaudi’s iconic lizard sculpture; the closer we got to the lizard, the more energized and crowded the park felt around me. 

 

Barri Gotic

Whereas Friday we spent most of the day exploring the modernist Eixample district, Saturday we moved backwards in time in the Gothic district.  We saw Roman walls, along with houses, palaces and cathedrals built approximately five hundred years ago.  The Barri Gotic revolves around the towering Catedral, but I much preferred the feeling of quietness inside the Placa de Sant Falip Neri. 

La Rambla

We joined what felt like every other tourist in Barcelona during our stroll along La Rambla, what I describe as Barcelona’s equivalent to NYC’s Times Square or London’s SOHO: crowded with commercial spaces selling goods worth less than the value of the parts, street performers easily incensed by ungenerous tourists, and vendors serving food unfit for even animals to eat. The only respite from the Top 40 pop music countdown and the pollution was the detour at Placa Reial where we saw lamp-posts designed by Gaudi for the city. At the end of La Rambla we stopped by the Monument a Colom, the requisite statue paying homage to the explorer; they are all over Spain, as we saw during our trip to Andalucia.

Modernisme in the Eixample District

Upon arriving in Barcelona we made our way to Passeig de Gracia in the Eixample neighborhood. I found myself guilty of committing a crime I abhor in tourists visiting NYC: looking upwards while walking down the sidewalk. Half of the buildings along the Passeig de Gracia have decorative rooftops; they are a kaleidoscope of colors and shaped like loosely-structured geometrical shapes. During my visits to Barcelona in the past, I spent most of my time navigating through the crowds in La Rambla and assessing the best deals in El Corte Ingles. I missed on the other part of Barcelona, the one overhead, practically hidden by the trees.

It was not until our walk along Passeig de Gracia that I realized the Eixample district is the central area for Catalonia’s Modernisme movement. Many houses, monuments and cultural venues built in the late-19^th/early-20^th centuries were designed by Barcelona’s best Modernist architects including Gaudi, Cadafalch, and Montaner. After a walk through the Modernisme neighborhood, I decided I am partial to Gaudi’s sea-inspired Mansana de la Discordia with its crustaceous-like designs, curvaceous window sills and balconies, and colorful exterior.