Saturday, May 16, 2026
We are off the boat!
We saw the back of the boat for the first time.
We got off with Julie and Kristine, waited 75 minutes for passport control (they took everyone’s fingerprints!), then contacted rideshares to get going. Then they were gone! So weird.
They went to La Sagrada Familia. The final cross has been put on top – 100 years after Antoni Gaudi’s death.
Our hotel is nice. It has Roman ruins in the lobby. As I write this, I can hear music floating in the open window from somewhere outside. We are an alleyway away from a major street – but our alley is super quiet.
Our plan was to go to Park Guell today. I looked it up while Keith was checking in. It was sold out.
Um? That’s a thing? I had no idea. I thought it was a park with Gaudi stuff. How does that sell out? Apparently because it is not just a park with Gaudi stuff. We pivoted and found a tour to take at the last timeslot of the day: 6:30pm. Okay! Our room was ready, so we took a nap for two hours. I woke up at 3:18am today and was ready to fade away.
Lunch/dinner was at Luigi’s. A hotel guy, Adam, gave us the recommendation – and walked the block and half with us to make sure we got a table. Huh. Keith had ravioli that was different than anything he has had before. We stopped back at 9pm for a takeaway pizza. It wasn’t cut. Interesting. Good thing it tore.
Park Guell was Gaudi’s idea for a community of 50 families in 1914. He made viaducts for getting around the neighborhood while staying out of the weather. He made a common area with beautiful (and ergonomically comfortable) benches. The benches undulate around the area giving people close, cozy spots to gather and more solitary areas to rest alone. He built the plaza of 100 columns to be a marketplace for everywhere to use. There was a large house already on the property, and Gaudi built himself a house. His lawyer (Guell) bought the existing house and by 1921 those were the only two choosing to live there. There were two fairy tale houses built at the entrance for the gardener and the head construction guy. The project was abandoned as Gaudi worked on La Sagrada Familia (and lived there at the very end of his life). We are lucky that the Guell family sold the whole kit and kaboodle to the city and that we can go see it.
I saw this guy while walking home
