After leaving Montserrat we had a nice relaxing drive back to Barcelona and stopped off to visit Park Guell – basically a high end real estate development gone wrong.
Park Guell was developed by one of the wealthiest men in Barcelona to be a luxurious housing estate of 60 blocks for the very wealthy. He asked his friend Gaudi, to design the development and they build three homes, one for Gaudi, one for the owner and one spec house to show potential buyers.
The park has an impressive entrance and then a walkway up to area that was to be for markets. Its lovely and cool here and easy to imagine market stalls set up in the area.
On top of the market area is a large space with views right back to the city and the ocean. It is surrounded by seating and would be used as a place to gather and meet outdoors.
Unfortunately none of the blocks of land sold and so after many years it was sold to the city for a token sum with the agreement there would never be housing on the site. The city has preserved it as an excellent example of Gaudis work.
Next we made our way to Sagrada Familia – the Sacred Family church- a work still in progress designed by Gaudi. It is just impossible to describe how amazing this building is! We only viewed the outside and it was just amazing, so much detail. There were hundreds of tourists present and I had the tickets I thought were for inside were not, so we’ll have to visit again to see it. Just posting one pic here but does not show the incredible detail – worth looking up online.
So our second day in Barcelona was better than I could have imagined!. Having a private tour guide driver really did make a difference. We’ve learned so much about the history of Spain and the Catalan people today. More sightseeing in the gothic area tomorrow!