Parc Guell

After finally vanquishing the final dregs of jet lag, I planned an afternoon to be a tourist. I hopped on the Metro, which is exponentially cleaner, more efficient, and all around better than the CTA (sorry Chicago), and made way to Antoni Gaudi’s famous park, Park Guell. Gaudi and Joan Miro are the two faces of modernisme, the artistic style of Catalonia that ignored the Gothic style at the time. Park Guell is modeled after an English garden-city model of urban planning, thus the architecture adjusts to the environment and not vice versa. In the pictures I took, you can see that Gaudi deliberately created organic looking structures and drew inspiration from the natural world around him. I did stop to admire the famous Gaudi dragon, though my favorite structures were the fences, gates, and stairs that Gaudi incorporated throughout the park. A huge, sweeping staircase caught my attention because it was almost out of place; a ballroom or grand hotel seem to be more apt locations for the staircase, not a public park. Walking most of the park took me two hours to do because the Casa-Museo Gaudi and the Casa Trias also occupy the expansive park and are worth visiting. Luckily, Park Guell is close to my university and I predict I’ll be back to relax for a siesta sometime soon.