Barcelona

For two years David and I have been wanting to visit our granddaughter Leila in Spain.  We both got to see her last year when she was here for the summer but then she went back and didn’t seem to want to come back to the states.  Can’t say as I blame her – why leave paradise when you live there? We wanted to see where she was living in Mallorca and finally found a time to go there the beginning of May.  

We flew from Boston to Barcelona and spent 3 nights there.  Neither of us had been to Spain before so it was an exciting adventure for both of us. Barcelona is an amazing place.  It has so much going on—the history, the culture, the architecture, the food. We arrived midday after a rather sleepless night and had made reservations at a hotel near the Ramblas –the main drag with lots of people, shops, and restaurants and transportation to anywhere you wanted to go in the city.  The interesting parts were down the side alleys and streets with amazing churches, museums and lots of street performers. 

Our hotel was on a square with many small streets coming off it — a good place to get lost in the maze of streets.  We took the metro to a station that was supposedly a 2 minute walk from our hotel.  It was, but we wandered around a bit before we could actually find it. After we found it we settled in a bit and headed out to find some food and explore the Gotic quarter where we were. 

Some views from our hotel and around it.

Since we had reservations for a bus tour the next day we walked up the Ramblas to find where we needed to meet at the Placa de Catalunya.

We enjoyed the street performers and went into some interesting churches then had a nice paella dinner and turned in for the night.

At the restaurant.

Our first full day in Barcelona was jam packed.  We had tickets for the Hop on, Hop off bus for the day so we could get a better sense of the City and places where we wanted to spend time.  The bus was one of those double decker ones so you could sit up top and get good views of the places they told you about on your earphones.  We went by some amazing architecture, sculptures and parks and along the harbor. 

This is the Christopher Columbus statue on the spot where King Ferdinand greeted Columbus on his return from the new world.

Along the bus tour.

Because we were concerned about being sure we were near Parc Guell where we had tickets for a 1:00 tour we didn’t stop along the way. At about 11:00 we reached the stop.  We decided to make the long steep trek up the hill to the Parc to make sure we knew where we were going and maybe find a place to get something to eat before going in.  When we arrived at the Parc we inquired about which gate we needed to go in and how early we needed to be there.  We had gotten all these warnings about being on time or you wouldn’t be allowed in. The man at the gate looked at our tickets and said we could go right in the gate we were at! So we did. Parc Guell is a UNESCO World Heritage site designed by renowned architect Antoni Gaudi.

The walk up to Parc Guell.

We probably spent about 4 hours there as there was so much to see and we probably didn’t see it all.

Around the famous mosaic bench.

We walked by some musicians and one was doing a dance.

We finally made our way back down the hill to find our bus. We took a different route and discovered an escalator going up the steepest part of the hill! That would have made our trek a lot easier. 

It started to rain so we found a cute little restaurant for a late lunch. We finally got back on the bus and saw some other areas of Barcelona ending up the at the square where we started. 

We had hoped to stop at some of the parks we passed going up to the park but the weather wasn’t really good for that.  We walked through a park which was a park for pigeons and people were feeding them. We walked by down the Ramblas to our hotel, stopping at interesting places along the way.  We had tapas that night at a restaurant on the square where our hotel was and a ridiculously rich chocolatey crepe.   

Day 3

The next day after breakfast and some wandering around the area we went to the info center at the square to get some help about how to get places and how long that takes.  We had tickets for Sagrada Familia at 3:15 and wanted to be sure we were there on time.  It was already a little after noon but we thought we had enough time to go to Montjuic.  

(from Wikipedia) Montjuïc or Montjuich, meaning “Jewish Mountain” in medieval Latin and Catalan, is a broad, shallow hill in Barcelona with a rich history. It was the birthplace of the city, and its strategic location, between the Mediterranean and the Llobregat River, has made it significant throughout history. The hill has a medieval Jewish cemetery, declared an area of Cultural Asset of National Interest in 2007. Montjuïc has been the site of various fortifications, including the Castle of Montjuïc dating back to the 17th century. The area was also associated with political imprisonments and executions, and held significance during the Spanish Civil War.

The hill was chosen as the site for the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition which led to the construction of several buildings, including the Palau Nacional and the Estadi Olímpic. Montjuïc was also the location for several venues during the 1992 Summer Olympics, with the Olympic stadium as the centerpiece. The hill is now home to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya and various parks and gardens, and can be accessed via the Funicular de Montjuïc and the Montjuïc Cable Car.

We took the Funicular (very difficult to find) partway up then walked up a ways. There was a restaurant where we had a great view of Sagrada Familia demonstrating how it towers over the city. The pool was below the restaurant. We saw some beautiful flowers and even saw a deer. We found this little lunch stand so we stopped there and got some lunch and watched the Monk Parakeets flying and digging around us.  We realized that we didn’t have time to go further since we had to get to our tour of Sagrada Familia so back down we went to the funicular and to the train stop at Sagrada. 

The original design for the project for the Sagrada Família by diocesan architect Francisco de Paula del Villar followed the prevailing guidelines of the time, with neo-Gothic elements: ogival windows, buttresses, flying buttresses and a pointed bell tower. Technical differences, about the cost of materials, led this architect to be replaced with another who was starting to stand out in the field, Antoni Gaudí, who took the project in a different direction, transforming it into an ambitious proposal for the church of the future. The cornerstone for the temple was laid in 1882 for the original design. Gaudi took over in 1883. He worked on it until he died and only saw the bell tower completed. His disciple took over the project but in 1936 it was vandalized during the Spanish Civil War.  In 1939 Francesc de Paula Quintana took over site management, which was able to go on thanks to the material that could be saved from Gaudí’s workshop and that was reconstructed from published plans and photographs. After many years and many changes in architects they have completed a museum of its history and 3 of the 4 facades are complete.  There is still the final side that is partially completed.  A month after we were there the tallest tower was completed and illuminated for the first time and the Pope had a solemn mass on the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death.  

The nave of the Basilica was created by Gaudi to represent a forest. The pillars reaching up to the ceiling are the trees and are made of different materials to represent different trees.  They reach up to a representation of leaves.  The stain glass windows bring light in as it changes so that each time you come back it looks different.  It was really awesome.  

After we left Sagrada we decided to go back to Montjuic to go up to the castle at the top.  We went back up and found the bus that we thought would take us there however we seemed to have gotten on it going the wrong way and it took us back down past places we’d been before.  Then the bus driver decided to take a break and got out and left for about 10 minutes.  When he came back he assured us that the bus went back up to the castle.  We got as far as where the funicular stops and were afraid they would go down again so we got off.  Turns out we should have stayed on.  So we walked up again and through some beautiful water gardens and other great views.

  We even saw a Hoopoe on our way up.  We finally got to the castle, that seemed more like a fort and went in to tour around. 

We had great views looking down on the city and could see how truly tall Sagrada Familia is as it towered over everything else.  We stayed there until it closed then made our way back down to the funicular.  Unfortunately the sun didn’t set until much later so we missed the chance to view it from up there.  It would have been a great place to see it.  We took the metro back to the Ramblas near our hotel.  We thought we might get some dinner at the large market right around the corner from our hotel but it was getting late and although we were able to get a little snack most of the stalls were closing. 

Instead we found an even better tapas bar than the night before that had a special of 4 tapas plates, a glass of wine or sangria and dessert for 16 euros.  Needless to say we were fairly exhausted so although it always ended up later than we planned we finally made it to bed.  

The next day was a travel day to Mallorca .  

Mallorca

We flew to Palma on Day 4 and Leila was there to greet us. We rented a car to make it easier to get around but Leila ended up doing most of the driving since she sort of knew where to go, at least a little better than we did. We still managed to get lost a few times. We went to our rental in Port de Soller which was a sweet town along the water. The owner wasn’t quite ready for us yet so we left our luggage and walked down to the Port.

Some views from our B & B and around Soller.

Our rental was up a hill from the port where we could easily walk down and get groceries or a meal or just walk around the port and see what we could find. We had 4 bedrooms so Leila stayed with us and her partner Aina joined us the last 2 nights.

Leila had a long itinerary for us so that we covered all directions on the island. Here are a lot of pictures we took along the way.

David wanted to go to a nice beach so he could swim in the Mediterranean so we went to what she said what was the tourist ‘s ideal beach. It was a beautiful beach but it was a bit chilly and David was the only one who went in the water.

We then went to the small town of Binissalem. We asked at a convenience store where was a good place for lunch and she sent us down a few long blocks and said to turn left then right. After a few blocks we looked down the road and it looked promising so we went that way and after a few turns found a place that looked good. It turned out to be very nice. The owner was quite a character. When we finished and headed back to the car we couldn’t find the right road. These small villages are very old and are not built on a grid so Perdidos otra vez! We found a local man who sent us in the right direction then came running after us to say we should go another way. He watched to see if we found the right way.

When we finally got back on the road we drove by a swampy area and David said we needed to turn around. It turned out he saw a bunch of Flamingoes. We walked over to see them closer and saw some other waders and about 7 Flamingoes but couldn’t really stay because we were too close to traffic.

We also went to Lluc where we saw this church:

The next day Leila said she had a surprise for us and drove us a ways over beautiful views

to a harbor where we had tickets for a boat to Dragon Island. This is a protected island that is covered with lots of small lizards. We got on the boat with about 20 others and motored over to the island where we were greeted by a Ranger who had maps and information about the island and all the different trails.

We had time to take the trail to the Lighthouse and back. On the way we counted all the lizards we saw and ended up with 220!

We also saw some nice birds including a Yellow-legged Gull, Western House-Martin, Sardinian Warbler, Spotted Flycatcher, European Greenfinch and the beautiful European Bee-eater.

When we came back Leila had made reservations for lunch at a restaurant we couldn’t find but did find a nice one on the water. My beautiful salad:

David and Leila decided to go in the water. Still too cold for me so I sat on the shore. While I was sitting I noticed something dark was coming toward me underwater. It got to about 4 feet away and popped up, saw me and went the other direction. It was a European Shag, in the Cormorant family. When David and Leila came back they said there was a Shag swimming around underwater near them. The had goggles on and got a good look.

We went back to Soller after that. Aina came over after work to join us and spend the night. We all went down to the Port and walked around all the boats in the harbor. There was one boat that had lights on the water so we could see the fish and saw some barracuda swimming around.

Our last full day Aina was able to join us to see Cuevas del Drach. These caves were very large and had 2 underground lakes.

At the end of the tour we came to the larger lake. We were directed to a large seating area. When the seats were filled we were asked to be quiet and not take pictures. Then they turned off the lights and we saw boats on the water with lights on them. One boat contained a trio of musicians-violin, bass and piano and they played a beautiful concert. When it was over we got on a boat that took us to the other side of the lake and the exit. It was a truly delightful experience.

We left the caves and went to a spot that we thought Denny would like us to spread some more ashes. When Leila showed us pictures of this place the water was calm, a beautiful blue and you could see the bottom.

This day it was windy and the water was all roiled up.

This is where we left him: (click to the right of the underlined title and then on the link to see a video)

Cala Magranahttps://youtu.be/MV599_qC3lo

Our last day was a travel day but our flight wasn’t until afternoon as we were only going to Barcelona to spend the night before flying home. We had time to do a few more things.

The four of us went to the cute little village of Fornalux for breakfast. It was the best breakfast I had there. Homemade bread rubbed with tomatoes, fresh tomato slices with cheese and covered in a pesto sauce. Yum!

We walked around the village

and visited a cathedral;

After that we drove to Palma where we left Aina. Then we went to see Leila’s apartment and met her roommate, Ashley.

We had a little time to check out the city of Palma.

Then we went to the airport and started our travel home. This was a wonderful trip made special by having Leila show us where she is living now and hopes to become a resident soon. Eventually she hopes to go to Law school in Barcelona or Madrid. David and I are so proud of how well she has managed all this. It’s a long way from us but maybe we’ll get to visit her again.