Friday, December 18, 2009
1:03 PM | Posted by
Dan Ruemenapp
This is part two of my final Euro Trip blog posts. After our excursion in Prague, Czech Republic, a few of us decided to take a trip to Barcelona, Spain. Barcelona was home to the 1992 Olympic Games and is the second largest Spanish city behind Madrid. It is located in the Autonomous Community of Cataluña in Northern Spain bordering the Mediterranean Sea. The best part of Barcelona is that it was about 26° C (78.8° F); a welcome change from the cold of Prague and Madrid. Other than Spanish, the other official language spoken in Cataluña is Catalán. I expected Catalán to be a secondary language but to my surprise Catalán was everywhere and was also the primary language of the region. Its use was fairly restricted during the Franco dictatorship, but I was surprised to see how it has flourished since. Luckily, everyone still knows Spanish so I was able to communicate with them all anyway. So after we got settled in at our hostel (it was kind of ghetto but it was cheap and got the job done) we walked around La Rambla (a popular tourist street) and visited the Christopher Columbus monument on our way to the harbor to the Mediterranean. There we looked out to the water and just had a great life chat before our traditional Spanish dinner of paella and sangría. After dinner we just wandered the city exploring before calling it a night.
The next morning we got up and bought some metro passes to get around the city better. The first thing on our list to do was to the the Church of the Holy Family (La Sagrada Familia). This church is a massive and beautiful example of the architectural style which is Antoni Gaudí. The church was not finished in his lifetime and is still currently under construction by architects who wish to finish the spectacular work that was started by Gaudí. They say that it will probably not be finished until around 2040. We had to pay to get in to the church, but hey, we are supporting the construction efforts. We took an elevator to the top of one of the church towers to get a beautiful view of the city before heading down and moving on to our text objective. Next we made our way to Park Güell, built on a hill. Park Güell was also constructed by Antoni Gaudí as you can clearly notice from my photos. It is an amazing park with so many different beautiful aspects there are too many to name in my post. You'll just have to go look at my photos and see for yourself. We kept climbing a trail through the constructed "caves" and eventually worked our way up to the top of the hill it is located on. From there we enjoyed a beautiful view of the entire city of Barcelona.
After sitting on top of the hill, we walked back down and made our way to the beach of the Mediterranean Sea. It was so nice being able to walk down a beach in the middle of December. We walked down and found a fun Eiffel Tower looking jungle gym and climbed on it for a while. One thing we wished we didn't see was two naked men walking down the beach (Apparently they thought it was a nude beach or something, NOT). After our childish fun on the jungle gym we continued to walk down the beach and saw a sand castle competition. Some of those were phenomenal pieces of art. After the walk down the beach we had a quick lunch and went to go check out the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia and some of the Christmas markets in the plaza near the cathedral. After dinner, we went out into the city for the night.
The next morning we woke up early to catch a train to Montserrat. Montserrat is a mountain about 1.5 hours by train from Barcelona which is the home to a Monastery which has been the home to many pilgrimages throughout history, including the great St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Ignatius went to Montserrat for a spiritual reflection and there he received the revelation to write the Spiritual Exercises and found the Society of Jesus (Jesuits). First we followed a trail on the mountain with spiritual monuments devoted to the important Biblical events which led to a chapel built into a cave in the mountain. After that we took a trolley ride up higher in the mountain to have a picnic basically on top of a mountain.
After that I found an opportunity to climb even higher and farther than the designated trail and I ended up basically in a remote spot on top of Montserrat looking down at the world. I sat there, and listened to Stevie Ray Vaughan's version of "Little Wing" and looked down at everything. I felt completely at peace and one with everything.
It was a magical experience and I just sat there for a good 10 minutes listening to my most inspirational music feeling so real and organic. Then John Mayer's "3x5" came on and it made me think about my entire experience here. It is impossible to put into words or catch inside a picture frame what I have gone through; it is something that you must experience with your own eyes. I do hope that my descriptions help you understand what I am experiencing but it really isn't the same as facing it face to face. Eventually the rest of the group followed me but I went a little farther than they were willing to climb so I went back to join them. After some reflection on the day we went back down to the Monastery and visited the beautiful basilica before heading back to Barcelona.
It was a magical experience and I just sat there for a good 10 minutes listening to my most inspirational music feeling so real and organic. Then John Mayer's "3x5" came on and it made me think about my entire experience here. It is impossible to put into words or catch inside a picture frame what I have gone through; it is something that you must experience with your own eyes. I do hope that my descriptions help you understand what I am experiencing but it really isn't the same as facing it face to face. Eventually the rest of the group followed me but I went a little farther than they were willing to climb so I went back to join them. After some reflection on the day we went back down to the Monastery and visited the beautiful basilica before heading back to Barcelona.
When we got back we watched a beautiful 10 minute fountain show in front of the city hall. After the fountain show we had Mexican food (Finally something spicy!) and then went out for the night exploring the city. The next morning we got up and went to Montjuic, the Jewish mountain, of Barcelona and explored the old Jewish castle. After the castle we visited the Olympic Stadium that was home to the 1992 Olympic Games. We then headed down Montjuic and visited some other impressive architectural buildings built by the famous Antoni Gaudí before heading to the airport to return back to Madrid.
This was probably my favorite trip my entire time in Europe and I'm glad it was the last. Barcelona is a magical Spanish city filled with culture, architecture, and history. It is amazing to say that I went from a beach to the top of a mountain in less than 24 hours, and I found my favorite place in the world. If you want to see photos from my trip to Barcelona visit http://picasaweb.google.com/djruemenapp.
"You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes / It brought me back to life / You'll be with me next time I go outside / No more 3x5's."
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