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Thursday 19 July: Park Guell

We still had ¡travel time on our Hop on hop off bus ticket so we walked to the first stop and bused to Park Guell. It’s another World Heritage site that was designed by Gaudi as part of an intended housing subdivision. His father bought the first show home and he and his father and niece lived there for about 15 years until he moved to the workshop at Sagrada Familia to keep track of works.

I didn’t take photos of his house as we’d been there before but have some of the gardens and park and more of Barcelona.

Along the way to Park Guell
It’s a cross between the Flintstones and squiggle castles.
He perfected the art of using supporting arches in an organic form.
A parrot family. There’s one on the nest you can see through the hole.
Looking towards the gate houses and view from the terrace. You could queue to enter the one on the left. We didn’t. The one on the right has gift shop on both the ground and first floors. It was a mission getting out as the spiral staircase is really just a one person access!
This Greek structure thing with mosaic ceilings was at the back of the terrace. It provides lovely shade.
Looking back at the terrace from the Dragon Steps. It amazes me how people seem to think everyone else wants a photo of them posing in front of the central feature! I waited ages for each individual from a tourist family to get out of the way so you could actually see the dragon!
This is apparently just a neighbourhood house adjoining the park.

The Guell house, also designed by Gaudi for the family, is a remarkably normal looking mansion, by Gaudi standards, that is now a primary school, so no access there for the public.

It was hot!

We had a quiet late afternoon back at the hotel and then went out for tapas. We met up with Georgia who is one of JenY’s sister Sarah’s friends from medical school. Georgia and Sarah are both going to a friend’s wedding near Tarragona which is why Pauline was in Barcelona. She is doing the babysitting. We had a lovely evening with Georgia, who was relatively recently camper-vanning in NZ. Sounds like the wedding will be a great catch-up event for lots of friends now living in various parts of the world.