4/18/22 First Look at Barcelona

 After we got to our hotel last night, we took a short walk to the Placa Catalunya and loved the lighting on the fountain.  

Back in our room, we did minimal unpacking and checked email and tried to get my fitbit to sync and recognize its new time zone (it was recalcitrant), and then CRASHED. We had no time limits to get up except to get to breakfast by 10am, so no alarm. We woke up about 8am (11pm PDT) and finished unpacking and cleaned up for breakfast.

Around 10 am, we went in search of a Sim Card store because our taxi driver last night refused to help us find the one at the airport and we discovered that except for places with food, Barcelona is shut down for Easter Monday. I did get a map of Barcelona downloaded so we would have some clue where we were.

We found the hop on/off bus tour that focused on architecture (especially Gaudi) and hopped on.

The view from the bus. It was even busier later.

Above and below: Casa Mila: an obviously
Gaudi design

Random interesting design

 

Casa Batllo -- possible visit tomorrow

Another random building

One of our first stops was Sagrada Familia, which was JAMMED with people. We realized that every tourist in the city was focusing on the bus tours because mostly everything else was closed. 

 

Sagrada Familia -- larger and more
spread out than you think

Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau

We had planned to get off at a few stops and our first one was Park Guell -- It was like being back in San Francisco -- it was a multiblock uphill walk, followed by about 80 steps up to get to where you could buy tickets. And the sign said they were sold out. We walked up a couple hundred (really!) more steps and got to a free viewing area at the top of the park, and headed back down. No Guadi architecture was in view anywhere that we could see from our locations. There was a line for tickets to get in again - apparently they have hourly limits -- but we were ready to go.

 

View from the top of Park Guell. The ocean is in the
distance but the haze obscures it in the photo.

It's interesting how many cities have
structures like this.Formerlu called
Torre (Tower) Agbar,  now known as
Torre Glories.

There weren't that many people waiting for the bus but the top looked really full already so I pushed to the front with Jim right behind me until several people stepped in front of him. I got lucky and found a pair of seats together and he kept not getting on the bus. He was the very last person on the bus as I was debating if I needed to leave my seat and get back off so we didn't get separated with no clear way to connect again. 

Torre Andreu "La Rotunda"

Sant Gervesi i Protasi

Sant Vicence de Sarria

Barcelona Football Stadium. Holds 99,000 fans

After that experience, I was a little iffy getting off before we were ready to be done and it seemed like the things I wanted to see were at some distance from each stop. I had really been looking forward to the ride and probably any other day the off/back on routine would have been hassle free. I am hoping our official tour that starts tomorrow will be an improvement.

Back at the hotel, the maids were cleaning the room next door so we rested and then left when they were ready to clean our room. We went in search of a light lunch, and Honest Greens sounded like a good idea, but at least half their offerings had avocado (no for Jim) or beans (not a favorite of Lynn) and Jim noticed that the plates were really big. Instead, we checked out a 'supermercado' (hole in the wall grocery store) and discovered they had Magnum Bars, so that was lunch in the park.

We saw this building from the park and went to see it.

Same building, up close. It is Cases Antoni Rocamora,
a large residential complex near Placa Catalunya.