I got in to Barcelona a bit late the night before but made it to my flat without trouble. The owner, and his adorable little son, greeted me when I arrived and showed me around. I wished I could have stayed longer but I enjoyed the time I did have and even got in a load of laundry that night.
I didn’t unpack much since I had to drop my bag off at the train station for the journey to Madrid later that afternoon. Once I arrived at the station, I headed towards the left luggage section. When I arrived, I discovered that the situation had changed since the last online update I had seen. The lockers had been removed and replaced with an outside company that charged around 10 euros per bag. I did not appreciate that unpleasant update but made the best with the situation. The short walk I had taken to get to the station introduced me to the humidity the Mediterranean city brought along for the experience. Carrying my big bag on my back for the whole day would not work so I rearranged my belongings to stuff my travel mug and a handful of other items into the big bag to avoid further exorbitant charges.
Now came time to locate a city map. I traipsed around the station but could not find an information desk or a shop selling maps. Outside I went. There I spotted a sort of tourist information stand that gave out a sort of map but existed more to sell city tours. I took the map but declined the tour. While not as extensive as desired, it formed an adequate supplement to my printed walking tour directions. I tried to mark my route on the map but breeze kept whipping the paper away from me. This wide open square in front of the train station held little in the way of seating but I spotted some tables just outside a café across the street, a temporary solution of course. Even though all the tables save one stood empty, the waitress came out and made me move unless I purchased something. I ended up back inside the station and at a table in an even smaller café where I marked out the route.
With marked route, I set off for the furthest point on my map, the Mirador del Colón with the intent to work backwards on my printed guided tour which would help me end up right back at the train station in time for my ride to Madrid. This meant a long walk in the beginning of the tour which I assumed would lack prominent sites to see but I ended up passing several monuments of which I cannot remember the name as well as Camp Nou, the stadium of FC Barcelona. I thought foundly of a former student, obsessed with Barcelona, when I saw it in the distance.
I know that I mentioned the humidity before. This last week of my Grand European Adventure that I spent in Spain meant that I finished my trip in an area of Europe much closer to the equator than the others and an area with a similar longitude to my South Carolina home. I may love my home but I do not love the humidity so the unexpected addition (although in hindsight I realize that I should have expected it) proved the only negative aspect of my day in Barcelona. Hence, I will not mentioned the ever-present humidity again in the post.
The Mirador del Colón rests in the center of a traffic circle next to the marina. Before getting up close and personal with the confused explorer, I crossed the street and gazed directly on the Mediterranean for the first time. Even when I visited Italy five years ago in 2015, I got closest to the sea when I visited Pompeii and Naples but at those locations I gazed upon the Adriatic rather than the Mediterranean. I could not see much of the Mediterranean at that point thanks to the boats choking the harbor but at least I could now say that I had seen it.
From the tiny sliver of the Mediterranean, I turned my attention to the monument. A figure of Christopher Columbus (Cristobal Colón) stands atop a pillar holding his arm out and pointing to what most assume is the New World. In fact, he points in the near opposite direction reportedly on purpose. Rather than pointing to the New world, he points towards Algiers, a subtle jab at the explorer’s confusion and belief held until his death that he had reached India by sailing West. For a price, one could use the internal lift of the monument to travel to the top.
I chose to forgo this particular opportunity and began my journey down Las Ramblas, a massively wide street meant for shopping and eating. Block after block continued in the same fashion, stands of tourist trinkets lined the center of the broad avenue with permanent buildings on either side and all sorts of temporary merchants with their wares laid out on various forms of cloth occupying any open space they could find.
After navigating my way through the throngs of tourists and vendors while holding tightly to my bag, I found myself at the entrance to the tightly packed Old Town.
A handful of the sites listed on my walking tour printed guide unexpectedly required the payment of an entry fee. Since I did not have as much left of my daily budget thanks to the third-party luggage storage company, I settled for soaking in the ambiance as I wove back and forth through the tightly packed streets, something I could do for free.
From Old Town, I had one primary stop left, La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s famous still incomplete, architectural masterpiece. I knew I wanted to visit. I have wanted to visit this site for over a decade. On the last major trip my aunt Ruth took before her cancer entered its final stages, she and my uncle Tim visited Barcelona. My uncle, an architect, long desired to visit this modern architectural wonder. I remember the excitement on my aunt’s face as she described its astounding beauty and magnificence.
The memory of this wonder came back to me as the famous pillars rose above the rectangular boxes of the surrounding buildings. Chills ran down my spine as I approached the church that towers in twisted, fluid lines unlike any church I have ever toured. Some of the lines reminded me of drop sandcastles, dripped with immense precision and intricate sculptural details that defy normal expectations for Roman Catholic churches.
When I saw the crowds of people packing the surrounding sidewalks both inside and outside of an ornate fence, I started to wonder if I would get to go in at all. I gained a view of much of the church’s exterior as I approached the front. Even though I arrived a little after eleven in the morning, no entrance tickets remained. A little Google searching later that night revealed that one should never rely on same day entrance tickets as any available often sell out within half an hour of the ticket office opening each day. I took that as yet another sign that I need to return to the city in cooler times and spend a lot more time touring.
Even though I could not pass the gates, I took my time strolling around the church, taking in the stunning beauty and striking design. Too soon, however, I had to head back to the train station to grab lunch, retrieve my bag, and get on the train for the four hour ride to Madrid.
This small taste of Barcelona whet my appetite for so much more. I have no idea why I gave myself only six hours to tour just a little of the city. I guess I wanted to preplan my excuse to come back.
Four hours after getting to the train station, I found myself in the Spanish capital with signage completely in Castilian Spanish, not the Catalan that confused me a bit when I first arrived in Barcelona. I had forgotten that Barcelona is located in Catalonia in the northeast portion of the country. I found my Madrid flat with little trouble although I did have to walk up a street that felt similar to climbing a mountain, especially while carrying my big bag. Once safely inside, I unpacked and prepared for the next day’s adventure.