Cruising with Rexcat and Rexie: The Gaudi Park

Antoni Gaudi was a major influence in the design of several buildings and facilities in and around Barcelona. As an architect, he was commissioned to build several homes. One interesting project is a housing site he was commissioned to build in Barcelona, named Parc Guell. His inspiration was found in everyday nature and was probably the first recycler of materials.

While we enjoy absorbing the city by walking the streets, we find touring with a guide as being the the most informative. In Europe, being a tour guide is a little different than most other places. A Tour Guide in Europe has to have some college and be licensed by the City/Country for the areas in which they will guide tours.

Here is our first guide, Maria, as she begins the tour.

Park Guell was built as a housing complex. Gaudi so much wanted his garden to be like an English garden in that he actually made the sign to read Park.

Each and every item in his garden was planned by Gaudi, including the plants, trees, flowers, etc.

Since his garden was built on a hillside, we immediately cross a bridge to enter the garden and soon realize that Gaudi is like nothing we have ever seen.

After crossing his bridge, we get a chance to relax on his rock seats. They are amazingly comfortable.

As we go down the different terraces of his garden, we find a walk that is surprisingly like being inside a huge wave as it rolls towards the shore. You can just imagine a surfer touching the backside of the wave as they ride their surf board .

Here are the steps that lead toward the bottom of the buildings.

At the bottom we take a look at one of his buildings in which he used coffee cups as decoration on the very top.

Throughout our journey to this point, we have seen many vendors trying to sell us a variety of items of which almost all of them are knockoffs. We were told that in Southern Italy, these items are made by the Italian Mafia.

Notice that they put their goods on sheets. This is done because it is illegal for them to sell like this and if the police show up, they can quickly grab the four corners of the sheet and take off. This will not be the last time we see this type of selling. It is being done in each and every port we have visited. When the unemployment of Spain is 20% overall and 40% for youth, it is no wonder that we see them trying to sell us. This will also be the first time that we see two or more of these vendors get mad at each other and begin fighting. It began to concern us as the fight escalated to include almost all of the vendors in this area. They did scatter as the local police showed up and after the police left they all set up shop again within minutes.

I should point out that in some locations, it is illegal to purchase from these vendors and if caught, the tourist will be fined and the vendor escapes without any punishment. We know of at least one woman who purchased a hand bag and was fined 150 Euros by the Police. She didn’t even get to keep the handbag.

One of the items Gaudi built was a marketplace with huge Roman columns. Notice the octopus in the one photo. This was where fish was to be sold. Similar items were in the roof indicating the area to sell meat, bread, etc.