Barcelona. Day 1. European trip. Part 4
The plane landed at the main airport in Barcelona. At a stop near the airport, we jumped into a bus with the inscription "Center", tried to establish contact with the driver, but did not find common ground and for 2 euros we drove to Espanya Square by typing, and then using the GPS navigator on the phone we decided to look for our hotel .
The first thought that crossed my mind was something was wrong! It was worth turning into the first streets and everything became clear. It's a LABYRINTH! Streets, passages, cars, turns, small squares with fountains that appear out of nowhere, narrow streets again, turns again. It seemed that we could not get out of this chaos. There are SO many streets, and the names are SO similar. You look at the map on your phone, at the map at the bus stop, and you realize that these are two different cities! But how is it? ! We decided to enlist the help of the local population. O miracle! They also get confused in their streets!
Only on the third attempt did we come across a grandfather, who showed the right direction in broken English. In total, it took us three hours to find our hotel, and it's all in one small area. We were hungry, tired and angry.
We left our things and went for a walk. Plaza de Catalunya occupied by local youth and pigeons, the walking street La Rambla stuffed with a variety of stalls and cafes, the seafront, the next quarters and narrow streets.
As I read in one of the reports, "the whole city is rolled up in asphalt. " Palm trees grow in some places, a huge number of bald trees, as if from horror films. After cozy Krakow, Barcelona seemed absolutely tasteless, dry and not interesting. Solid stone.
In order not to be disappointed, we decided to go look at the main attraction of the bars – the Sagrada Familia. Armed with a map previously stolen from the hotel, we began our difficult journey.
Past the Gothic quarter, along the long streets, past the creations of Gaudi ...
They walked and walked and walked...We walked for quite a long time, our legs fell off, I wanted coffee and meat, my head was spinning. And now, on one of the turns in the distance, we saw a huge blue phallus! ! ! This is a curtain, we thought, and rubbed our eyes. It was not a phallus, it seemed to us ...Agbar Tower, a huge skyscraper to which we could not reach. There was a minimum of strength, time was going to sunset, and I didn’t want to climb the Cathedral in the dark. Threw away all vulgar thoughts and returned to the true path ...
The cathedral appeared before us as a huge gray mass in the scaffolding and cranes...
The cathedral has been under construction for decades, and, according to many, the construction will not be completed for another fifty years. To see how the Cathedral should look like in the final version, you can look into the workshop museum on the lower level of the Cathedral. Gaudí 's fantasy was, of course, stormy. He screwed up as best he could.
Entrance is naturally paid, it seems 13 euros.
You can take the elevator to one of the towers (16-17 euros with entrance). When we got to the ticket office, we were told that all elevator tickets were sold out. How all the tickets for the ELEVATOR could be sold, we could not understand. About five people were standing near the elevator and there were no flea markets there. Well there is no way.
Inside the Cathedral is no less pretentious than outside. Bright mosaics, patterns in the form of flowers on the ceiling, an organ, a suspended Jesus ...everything is somehow strange and not according to the church
Tiredness affected the roofing felts, roofing felts had already seen a lot, but the Cathedral did not cause any special emotions. In the first coffee shop we came across, we took a huge mug of latte, and walking through the cold streets of Barcelona, we crawled to our hotel. A hot shower, a cold room, the shouts of the Spaniards outside the window, a sweet martini from the throat ...life is getting better! Passed out like babies.. .
