Fantastic day at Park Guell (which does actually rhyme, by the way)

Today was the opposite of yesterday. We all slept reasonably well, and we already had a plan and a bus route in mind. Greg had to work all day, which was the only bummer.

We took a bus over to the neighborhood of Gracia, which was clearly one of those places where ordinary, middle-class Barcelona citizens live. Already I felt more comfortable there than in the fancy-pants neighborhoods. It was a lot like San Francisco in that the buildings were ordinary, the hills were steep, and there could be amazing surprises lurking in strange places. The fact that the surprises were NOT men in leather straps was kind of different, but work with me.

The gem of Gracia is Park Guell ("Gway"), which is accessed by climbing one of those gasp-worthy hills through a nice, but forgettable neighborhood.  The park consists of an inner core called the "monumental zone," for which we needed tickets, and an outer area. Our ticket for the monumental zone was timed for a couple of hours away, so we thought we would be bored to death. No way.  We walked through gorgeous nature areas, stepping past the guys with jewelry and trinkets spread out on blankets on the ground. The hills were steep, but there were stone stairs everywhere, and there was something to se on every level.

We went to the house where Gaudi spent the last couple of decades of his life. Admittedly, I have never been remotely interested in Gaudi, or architecture/design at all, but the man's work is truly incredible. It is so fun and un-boring, with details everywhere and no square millimeter overlooked. But even with all the details and funky shapes, every building works on a larger scale, too. Not many people can make teensy mosaics and then add them up to cathedrals.

The house was not huge, but had a fantastic view from which Gaudi could see all his projects in Barcelona (from a distance). It had furniture that was not only gorgeous, but it also seemed like something I would want to sit in.

That was a quick little tour, perfect for a limited tolerance of museums, and then we were off to wander the viaducts and funky structures of the park. There were musicians in various places. One violinist was playing. "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay, and then launched into a One Republic tune. A string group played some sort of classical stuff. I can recognize maybe six classical tunes, and four of them bore the snot out of me, so I can't guess what they were playing. A Spanish guitarist was playing on the picnic area, and somewhere near the top of the park, a band played....noise. Seriously. One of the guys was bald except for about five randomly placed dreadlocks, each of which went past his butt. He flapped those around and grinned like a madman while he played his noise. His band mates were no more attractive. I couldn't say what instruments they played, but it didn't add up to music anyway, so it didn't really matter. We saw that the band was named something that seemed to translate to "Mountaineers," and their slogan was, "High Every Day." Which didn't really need pointing out, as the Dreadlocks Dance kind of gave that away.

Periodically, we passed guys dressed in gold foil or other wacky clothing. I vaguely wondered why, but it was too nice of a day to care what people were doing. Cassie saw a bunch of kids doing some sort of hand-jive dance, and said it was the geekiest thing she had seen since the last Georgia Tech Faculty event.

The trees and stones and flowers were fantastic, but the best part were the constant glimpses of the whole city of Barcelona, all the way to the Mediterranean. That's my idea of a perfect view of a city: where I'm in the trees with harmless weirdos, able to overlook the whole town and see the ocean.

Even the best park would get dull, but once we got into the monumental zone, there were all new sites. I haven't the foggiest idea why anyone would build this stuff (see my Facebook album for pics), but I'm delighted that they did -- and even more delighted that revolutions, civil wars, and modern life have not destroyed these things. It's like the one thing that some folks agreed upon was that there were pretty things that shouldn't get destroyed.

We stopped for some berries on the way home, and gloated to Greg about our awesome time. We had a dinner mishap, in that no one would serve us till 8pm, and Greg had a 9pm call. But the kids weren't starving anyway, and Cassie was a little unnerved by the lack of kids in any restaurant. So, we decided it was okay to be suburbanites for a night, and we got some pizzas to bake in the oven.

Tomorrow, it is off to Rome.