31st May Last Day in Barcelona 

This was to be a quiet day and it was, ventured out to find a post office, worked out about taking a ticket and waiting for my number, got a couple of things posted - yes1 Then rested after all that exertion and waited for my trip to Park Güell, The hotel provided the service of taking me there, better than a taxi, a young man drove me through the 3 pm traffic, this is when everyone is going back to work after lunch so was quite busy, He was originally from Brazil but is learning English for his work so we had a bit of a conversation. 

I took a guided tour of the park, was very good, probably an out of work architect or similar, spoke English as fast as they speak Spanish so required some concentration. Park Güell ( Güell being the very rich family that commissioned it) was supposed to be a sort of housing estate, but failed miserably, partly because it was so far from the city. The Guell’s had a house up the top and I believe Gaudi lived in one of the gingerbread houses. But when old man Güell passed away the land was sold to the city. Structures around the park are very much based on nature which was always Gaudi’s main inspiration, but there are various architectural periods that he also drew inspiration from,Greek in the temple, Romanesque in some of the arches, Rococo, baroque etc.


Very organic structures, trying to use natural materials without altering them too much, some of the hanging down rocks represent stalactites.

But what we were all waiting for was the mosaic, we were told that the seats were very ergonomic and well that is true they were very comfortable 

That bit that looks like a coil fits in just the perfect place on your back, unfortunately we didn’t have time to rest, just a few minutes to take some photos and move on. We had the opportunity to go back afterwards though.


This is the view from the ergonomic seats, you can see right out to the Mediterranean Sea!


Past some more organic bits to the Temple, the some of the columns we were told were hollow so water could run down through them which helped keep the area inside the temple cool. Gaudi had devised systems for collecting water so as to make it available to water the plants, also the gargoyles are water spouts  it doesn’t work like it used to as they had to do some waterproofing to stop some parts falling off. 





Ceilings were just beautiful, the white mosaics at the bottom of the columns decrease in height as you get to the far side, to hide the fact that the columns are getting slightly shorter.



And yes these are mushrooms, and no apparently Gaudi wasn’t taking hallucinogenics - it was just his imagination! It’s hard to get the effect of the glistening sun on the mosaic pieces in photographs - but it was! . Got a little bit of the famous chameleon, when bloody tourists weren’t in the way, and yes it is  because of the drought that water isn’t spewing forth from its mouth.


Park Güell isn’t just about the constructions there is quite a big garden area as well, I sat down and listened to some music for a while, would have been nice to have some company and a picnic, but got a taxi back to the hotel. Found a nice restaurant on google called Tingel just around the corner and had a lovely Hamburger and chips for tea - first meal I’ve eaten all of for a while!


Found a little parakeet type bird today at the park - makes a change from all those pigeons!! Times like these I need a telephoto lens!







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