Barcelona’s Park Güell and La Rambla – perfect for the easy-rambler!

As promised, more tales from the Catalonian side…

Work hard – play hard is one of my mottos, and that went for in Barcelona recently too. After working hard at Mobile World Congress, we had two free days on our hands. The first was taken up with getting to, up, and back down Montserrat, as reported a few days ago. In the morning of the second day we checked out the progress of the construction of Sagrada Família – which I told you about In yesterday’s post. Which left us with an afternoon, which we filled with a relaxed ramble around Park Güell (which I hadn’t been to in at least 20 years) and later along the famous pedestrianized tree-lined street called La Rambla (so, not quite “playing hard”, but we weren’t being idle either!). But first – the Gaudi (and Güell)-designed Park Güell…

Of course, if Gaudi designed it, it’s going to be unusual and unique; it’s also situated on the side of a fairly steep hill! ->

So, which way to go? Let’s consult the map…

Maybe I shouldn’t be describing and showing you photos of this park here in this post; after all – it is thoroughly famous, has probably seen in the flesh by many of you, and, well, the internet is simply packed with photos of it. But no – I can’t resist: I simply must use my camera when visiting such a marvelous place, and maybe the resulting pics will be helpful to those who haven’t been yet. Proviso over with… – onward!…

The stony “legs” in the above pic support this here overpass-walkway, which winds its way up the hill ->

Along it we pop ->

The views that open up of Barcelona – simply superb:

Of course the views from the peak of Tibidabo are even better. I wholly recommend getting up there if ever you’re in the city and you’ve half a day free. I was there ten years ago – in November 2014…

And there she is again – the one and only…

There are plenty of buskers dotted all over – and they’re all pretty good ->

Meanwhile, we’re completing our circular walkies:

The shapes and colorings and tilings of some of the buildings – there’s nothing like it anywhere else. How on earth was it all imagined? Which got me thinking; it’s all rather like… cybersecurity technologies: they too need to be imagined in outlandish/daring/leftfield/progressive ways! But I digress…

At first glance – one word: why? Upon further reflection – another single word: woah! ->

So, yeah – you get it: we had a rapturous ramble.

And talking of ramblings – we needed to get a micro-dose of La Rambla in, for sure, so we walked down it on the way back to our hotel. Locals and tourists all together, bustling with life – but not overly crowded like in summer ->

The customary street performers were conspicuously absent; not even one of those living statues. Low season was the reason, I guess. I recall La Rambla last time I was here when covid restrictions were still in force: in June, and relatively empty! And check out the social distancing; remember that? ->

And that’s all for today folks, and all from Barcelona, but not quite all from Spain. For we still had a dream-drive along one of my favorite roads in Europe – if not the world: but more on that in the next post…

The rest of the photos from Catalonia are here.