On My Own: Barcelona Part III

(Excuse how I write it. Kejap macam kat Barca, kejap cam ... whatever. Huhuhu... Enjoy reading!)

Good morning, Sunshine! Day 2 in Barcelona, Spain and so far, so G-R-E-A-T! :) After long walk yesterday, a doner kebab for dinner (Alhamdulillah for the small restaurant just 50 m away from the hotel) and a good night sleep; we are ready for more excavation of the city. Two things that we have already identified to do are:

1. To check out Barca's Market
2. To enter Casa Battlo

So, let's go :)

This is the Mercat de la Boqueria, Barcelona. It is situated about half way walk from the start of La Rambla but the Metro station (Liceu) where we were from is quite near the market. We were quite early, many of the shopkeepers were busy setting up.

The first two lots in front of the market sell 'Jamon' and not to our surprise, many other lots sell the same thing inside... Jamon in various forms! :) There's also butchers that sell the inner parts. Everything except the meat! The skinless sheep whole heads (Terkezut!), tongues, livers, etc.

Vegetables and fruits lots were very interesting too. Not many were unknown kind to me, thanks to Food Network and AFC but they look so colorful, fresh and 'gemuk-gemuk'! Many of them sell fresh fruit juices too! Mixed-fruit juices pun ada. We can't resist, I bought a red one (I think it was a mixed Strawberry and some other fruit) while Zukry had a yellow one (Pineapple+Orange, something like that) and they were YUMMY! With no added sugar ~

OK, bye-bye La Boqueria - Let's find a decent breakfast. There's this coffee house with long lines, we thought maybe they have the best coffee. We joined in the line and ordered our usual breakfast, cafe latte and croissants :) The Arab couple behind us ordered Tuna and cheese sandwiches with tea (Kenapa nak kena bagitau? Biasalah, busybody - It was just interesting to know what sort of food the other Muslim in the cafe chose. Saya dan wife mamat Arab tu je yang bertudung)

Burp! Alhamdulillah...

Next agenda, Antoni Gaudi's wondrous building - the first one: Casa Battlo. The house of the Battlo family. The building is open to everyone for a fee. We were given a guide that looks like a telephone. Every important corners was marked with a number, so we could listen to its description via the guide. No description was planted onto the wall, doors, floor - so in order to understand how Gaudi's mind work when he created this amazing house, listen! :)

Every single thing was given a really deep detailing what were both exquisite and as the guide said, ERGONOMIC! The handrail of the stairs, the corners of the doors, the window frame and handle, the ceilings - every corner, there is something we can enjoy looking, touching, testing. I love how we can independently wander with our telephone-like-guide. It may seem silly but everybody is doing it, so it's alright. Both of us had our mind blown off with the reasons why things are put at certain ways! Gaudi is really an architectural genius...

Zukry's digging it. Look at the gate! Gaudi can't accept straight boxy gate? :P

The dragon-like roof

The tiles were arranged such that the lower the wall, the lighter the blue color is. Why? Because it is a light well. Google about it!

I think we were there for about 2 hours. Snapping pictures, sharing our thoughts on how we could adopt Gaudi's idea into our future home :)

*** Reference to other buildings that we didn't enter:
1. There are many other Gaudi's creation we visited. Another house was Casa Mila. We didn't enter but you can check out Maria Elena's post about it. She went in :)

2. Another magnificent but not yet finished building is Sagradia Familia (the Basilica I Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia) There's this post about the building from inside, you go check a post from the style guru, Andy of StyleScrapbook.

From what we saw outside the Sagradia Familia, OMG - our jaws fall to the floor! There's so much detail put onto it. The roofs, all the statues that seem to have stories behind it, even the gate! You have to know that this building is still under construction and its target to finish is on 2026, 100 years after Gaudi's death! So, there were still cranes in between the towers. We went around the building to see the front, back and the sides of it.

After what feels like a thousand snaps of pic, we went to find nearest halal restaurant and saw an Instanbul Restaurant (quite a usual sight at La Rambla's too) We ordered Seafood Paella, it's a quite popular menu - Paella. When it came, it looked like 'bubur nasi kunyit' with prawns, mussels and squids. Since I have that in mind, it somehow tasted like how nasi kunyit should taste; but we managed to finish it off - the seafood, not all :P We left feeling unsatisfied. Should have ordered real NASI with MEAT :) Gedik2 nak test konon - ptuihh! Hehe.

Burp! Alhamdulillah...

OK, let's go to the next Gaudi's creation. This time it's not a single building but a PARK. It is named Park Guell (after a count, Count Eusebi Guell) Exiting the Metro, I thought a few hundreds meter walk; we could have arrived at the park... Seribu kali sayang, from where we stopped - not only we had to walk, we also had to climb a hill so steep, they actually installed escalators! I've never seen escalator totally outside a building! :) Our entrance was not the main entrance (Apparently we went out of the park from the main one. Hehe)

Enjoy the pictures :)