We began our day with a nice breakfast at the hotel. I don’t think we realized breakfast was included when we booked the hotel, but we’ve really appreciated it. It was quite a spread.
After breakfast we hopped on the bus and were heading to the Barri Gotic, the old city of Barcelona. I was interested in wandering around the narrow, twisting streets and seeing the Barcelona Cathedral. But, as we were riding by another of the famous Gaudi houses, Casa Batllo, we decided to hop off and take a closer look. It’s just down a few blocks from La Pedrera and it seems that Passeig de Gracia was the fashionable place to live at the start of the 20th century. All the rich and famous had homes along that street. Gaudi was hired to renovate the building because it was drab. So Gaudi glitzed it up, for sure. We didn’t tour the building, but you can see from the outside what a wild and crazy guy Gaudi was.
The exterior is so unusual, all decked out in purple champagne bubbles and masks.
We then wandered down the street and saw a building on the corner that had really wonderful carvings and windows. We took lots of photos of the exterior of this place.
We then read a sign outside the door and learned that this was Casa Lleo Morera. We couldn’t decide whether or not to pay the admission fee for a tour. We turned away, but then went back at least 3 times, but finally decided to go and see what it was all about, and we’re sure glad we did.
Casa Lleo Morera was built and designed by Domènech i Montaner, one of the predominant architects of Catalan Modernism. And what a fantastic tour we had. We were a group of only 2 with a tour guide for 30 minutes inside several rooms of this phenomenal place. Where Gaudi was surprising and even shocking, Domenech I Montaner was gloriously artistic and beautiful. Every room had fantastic wooden floors and ceilings, marble, beautiful plaster stenciling, incredible sculptures, lovely mosaics and stained glass. The place was stunningly beautiful.
This was a really wonderful find. It’s hard to believe that the touring public hasn’t really flocked to this house. We loved it.
We then walked down to Placa de Catalunya, which hadn’t gotten crowded yet Easter morning. We sat on a bench and enjoyed a street performer, and older guy playing the accordion. We laughed when he played When the Saints Go Marching In, as it was quite unexpected.
Then we strolled down the main street into Barri Gotic. We visited a lovely little church, Santa Anna, and then found El Quatre Gats,the Four Cats, where reportedly Pablo Picaso hung out with his artist friends. All these little side streets were really narrow.
We made our way to the Barcelona Cathedral. I was hoping that we’d see a sardana, a patriotic dance in which proud Catalans join hands in a circle. On the steps of the cathedral was a Catalan band playing tradition music and in the square in front of the cathedral was a sardana. It was so interesting to watch. Most of the dancers were elder Catalonians who, I’m sure, really enjoy getting together to do this patriotic dance.
We then hopped on the bus and went in another circuit. We traveled along the seafront and went through the Olympic Village, which is now a residential area. The athlete housing constructed for the 1992 Olympics, is now apartment buildings. We passed the really weird bullet-shaped building that is visible from nearly everywhere in Barcelona. It is the Torre Agbar and is the gateway to the technological district in “new” Barcelona. We continued on to where we hopped off to go to Park Guell, another Gaudi standout. Unfortunately, the hop off stop is quite a distance from the entrance to the park and the directional signage wasn’t very helpful. Lots of people were going in both directions. We asked someone coming down the hill if we were going in the right direction. The answer was yes, but that tickets were all sold out until after 7:30 that night. That made us turn around. We decided to find a place to sit and have a cup of coffee, but that was difficult because there wasn’t much in the way of cafes. We did finally find a little place and we had cappuccino and a yummy slice of tortilla de patata, or Spanish omelet.
After fortifying ourselves, we did trudge back uphill towards Park Guell. It being Easter, loads of people were also visiting the park and the entrance to the park was a mob scene. The part that is most famous for the Gaudi designs has an entrance fee, but we were directed to the free entrance to the green zone of the park. We could see the stairs to the Hall of 100 Columns from the entrance gate.
We very much enjoyed strolling through some of the park. Gauid created a really whimsical park. It was originally designed to be a gated community for the rich folk, planned to have 60 private homes on the hill overlooking Barcelona. Gaudi used manmade materials to imitate nature.
We found the Gaudi museum, which was a house Gaudi lived in while managing the construction of the park. The exhibit wasn’t very large, but one of the most interesting things was a short movie narrated by an old nun who used to take care of Gaudi while he lived in the house. She talked about Gaudi’s habits and lifestyle and it gave an interesting perspective about the man.
We did get some great views of Barcelona from the park. Gaudi could see the Sagrada Familia from the house at the park. He was a busy guy designing and managing the construction of such grand projects.

After enjoying the park, we took a cab back to the hotel as we needed to get packed and ready for the next day’s departure. After packing, we went next door to Piscolabis for tapas and wine. Then we walked across Avenida Diagonal to see an interesting building up close. From our hotel room window we could see this tall building that had lots and lots of plants growing on all the terraces and balconies. It was a very “green” building. It houses a large media company, Planeta.
And that brought to an end our 3 days in Barcelona. We covered a lot of ground and saw many, many wonderful sights. Everyone says how much they love Barcelona. Now, we’ll be saying the same. We love Barcelona!