Barcelona Day 2

Being neither young nor German, I have learned to value downtime in Spain, where I sometimes take a nap, read a book or go down to the beach and stare wistfully at the sailboats on the Mediterranean waiting for a European supermodel to come over and ask me if I’m ok. But I’m spending time with two young German friends right now and their main goal is to ensure that they do not miss one second of the full Barcelona experience. I thought we had hit every “must see” attraction here over the last two days, but they found two more today. I wasn’t thrilled when I first heard today’s plans, but now I’m glad we did it. 

First stop, Casa Batlló. This was an apartment building in downtown Barcelona that was purchased by a wealthy businessman in 1903 because he wanted to live there and liked the location. But he didn’t like the design so he decided to do a little renovating. He hired famous and weird architect Antoni Gaudi to recommend a design idea and Gaudi said something like “I know you basically just want to enlarge the bedroom, but I had a vision once of an undersea world with blue undulating waters and magnificent mysterious sea creatures that may or may not actually exist in reality and I’d like to turn your house into that.” The businessman said “Sure, why not?” And that’s what he did. 

Now the building is a UNESCO World Heritage Site owned by a different wealthy businessman who charges around $50 per person to the enormous crowds who show up every day to walk through it. In the end, I was glad to be one of those people.

But then, the weirder thing, Sacre Coeur. This is one of those classic European churches situated on top of the highest mountain outside of Barcelona with an enormous statue of Jesus with arms outstretched seemingly addressing the entire area of greater Barcelona with his infinite grace and wisdom. Except that somewhere along the line, someone in Barcelona thought it would be a good idea to also build an amusement park there. So in reality, Jesus is addressing a bunch of kids on a Ferris wheel and merry-go-round. I am not going to take the bait that is so enticingly trying to get me to write something incredibly distasteful about being in a Catholic church and hearing screaming children (yes, screaming with happiness, but still . . . ). Regardless, the contrast of a massive Catholic church with a huge Jesus statue on top full of people prostrate in prayer surrounded by popcorn-eating kids waiting in line to get on a roller coaster is alone enough to make the trip worthwhile.

It has both an amazing view of Barcelona and an embarrassing view of families just up for the amusement park.

Tomorrow the Germans will be gone and I can go down to the beach and stare wistfully at sailboats.