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Parc Güell - another one of Gaudi's projects, but unlike la Sagrada Familia this one failed miserably. The Güell family were rich bastards and acquired this 42 acre hilly plot in 1900 with the intention of turning it into a residential garden village with about 60 houses and public buildings etc. Güell commissioned Gaudi with the development of the project. Only two houses got built before one of the would-be buyers pulled out. Güell failed to sell a single house after that, and in the end he gave up. The city acquired the land in 1918, and it's been a public park since 1922. The shots above show the main entrance to the park - all designed by Gaudi (the man wasn't keen on straight lines and right angles in case you hadn't noticed).

 
Above the entrance is the Gran Placa Circular - a huge open area looking south over the city. The whole thing is supported by the huge columns shown above (86 of them in total). I'm sitting on what is apparently the largest bench in the world which twists snakelike around the edge of the plaza. From here you can walk further up the hill for some awesome panoramic views of the city (like the night shot on the previous page).
 
 

 
Along from Parc Güell is another bloody big hill that can be scaled the easy way via a tram and this funicular that looks like a Kombi van hehe.

 
 
At the top is this old-fashioned fairground in an area known as Tibidabo.
 
Towering over it all, on the highest peak of the range, is the Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor with a massive statue of Jesus on the roof that looks just like the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The church lights up spectacularly at night!

 
More hazy views, this time from Tibidabo.

 
 
Back in town hidden away in the back streets is the Picasso Museum. Somebody recommended this to me and so I killed half an hour wandering through. Really bloody good if you're the arty type (which I'm not), not so good if you're just looking for some fodder for your website because they don't allow photography here (but as you can see, that rarely stops me). He was an interesting bloke that Picasso.

 
My last Spanish feed - Paella and grog on the beach. Awesome :)

 
 
I did a night-bus tour as well simply to see more of the city by night. Above is the Torre Agbar - the largest dildo factory in Europe. Well it would be funny if it was, but in fact it is simply an office block for the municipal water company. Left is the Nativity facade of la Sagrada Familia (like I said, Gaudi wasn't a fan of straight lines or right angles). Below is the Magic Fountain!
 
 
 
This is the cool fountain I mentioned on the last page outside Palau Nacional below Montjuïc hill. The Magic Fountain comes to life during summer evenings putting on a 15-minute display of light, water and music. Bloody good to watch!
 

 
 
On our final morning en route to the airport this old duck wandered along, started chatting to me in Spanish or Catalan, handed me a bag of unappealing-looking fruit, and wandered off. I was pretty sure the apple would put me to sleep for 1000 years so I decided to give them to the first homeless person I could find. Instead I found the next best thing down La Rambla...
 
Another silly old duck with a weird fruity obsession - perfect!

After all that excitement we got to Barcelona airport and started fighting with those stupid bloody auto check-in machines that never seem to work for me. When it asked for the bank card I used to book the flights, I stuck my credit card in and (after the machine rejected it for no apparent reason) I put it back in my wallet and back in my bag. After checking in the good old fashioned way, I went to put my passport back in my bag and realised my wallet was gone - not even ten minutes after wrestling with the auto check-in! During those ten minutes, Jen was next to me the whole time, and we were away from crowds of people, so if someone has managed to steal it out of my bag without my noticing then kudos because that's a bloody top effort! It's highly unlikely I put it down somewhere and walked off without it, or that it just somehow fell out of my (zipped) bag, so who knows but either way it's gone. I rang the bank and cancelled my bank cards asap, so aside from the Euros that were in there it's no great loss.

It turned out the wallet thing wasn't the only pain in the arse for the day. Jen and I arrived in Edinburgh on time; our luggage did not. We were the only two dorks left standing by the luggage conveyor after everyone else had collected their luggage and left hahaha! The weird thing is I happened to see our luggage with the baggage handlers out the plane window right after boarding in Heathrow en route back to Edinburgh. They loaded everyone else's shit on, appeared to have a chat about ours, and then drove away with it! Long story short, they both arrived later that night (on separate flights - what a pack on incompetent clowns baggage handlers must be!). So anyway that was La Tomatina and my gallivant around Spain. Barcelona was definitely the pick followed closely by Valencia, though Madrid was better than I expected it to be. La Tomatina was everything I expected it to be and a lot of crazy fun! Next trip: Croatia in three weeks! :)

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Page Comments


agree about the flogging - they got a nice €120 cash out of it too coz I'd just paid Aaron back from the rest of the week ;)
- Jen

Yeah of course the flash was off, else the security sitting literally just round the corner would've seen hahaha!!

And yeah my wallet probably was flogged and like I said - kudos cos Jen was there whole time during that ten minutes between it being there and me noticing it missing and we were away from crowds so good job!!
- Aaron
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Its spain... most likely your wallet WAS flogged. The spanish know how to pickpocket!
- charlatan

hope the flash wasnt on wen u took that picasso foto?!!
- your name

Spain looks awesome, the weather seemed to treat you right! I'll bring you some fruit one day ok! Haha
- Abbey

Hey mate, very good heaps of food and great pics of spain, looking forward to catching up soon. Brent & Rochelle (Melbourne)
- Brent Morgan