In Barcelona, Finding Deals With Gaudí as Guide – The New York Times
In Barcelona, Finding Deals With Gaudí as Guide
Lucas Peterson
JULY 12, 2017
The Sagrada Família basilica in Barcelona, which the architect Antoni Gaudí worked on for over four decades until his death, in 1926. It is still under construction. Pep Daudé/Basílica de la Sagrada Família I try to be judicious about which cities I describe as “magical,” but Barcelona deserves the word. While Madrid searches for its place among Europe’s capital cities, and Seville has its rich history, Barcelona has a particular allure I’d not encountered before. Whether it’s an impromptu evening soccer game in an alley deep in the Gothic Quarter, making new friends at a pintxos bar where patrons stand shoulder to shoulder, or thoroughly enjoying the admittedly touristy light-and-water show at the Magic Fountain near the National Palace, Barcelona’s delightful idiosyncrasies and fierce charisma make it an ideal sojourn for any traveler.All you need to really feel like a Barcelonian, my friend Julia Miskevich, a former resident, explained to me, is “good vermouth and pickles.” That, and “maybe a cigarette and a very hoarse voice.” I found wonderful food and drink in the Catalonian capital (though I skipped the cigarettes), but I made a point of focusing on the creations of the modernist architect Antoni Gaudí, including his enormously popular and uncompleted masterpiece, the Sagrada Família basilica. And while Barcelona is not cheap, I cut corners where I could and was able to leave after several days with my wallet little the worse for wear.
Gaudí grew up about 60 miles down the Balearic coast in the small city of Reus. But he made his name in Barcelona, where he moved in 1868 to study architecture. By the time he graduated, his professional career was already well underway. And while he originally paid homage to the Victorian traditions of his time, he soon began working in innovative and shocking ways, experimenting with materials, colors and geometry, and incorporating inspiration from the plant and animal kingdoms.
Gaudí works are now a reliable moneymaker for Barcelona. It’s not cheap to go into his buildings: Even Park Güell, a Gaudí creation and public in places, requires timed tickets to gain access to certain areas (7 euros or about $8). There are discounts to be had, but they are limited. By registering your personal information and fingerprint with one of the Citizen Help and Information Offices in town, you receive free entrance to the park and discounts to some museums in the city — though not to the other famous Gaudí sites.
Which means you’ll have to fork over an entrance fee of 22 euros to Casa Milà — that’s for a ticket for a particular time. (The fee is 29 euros for the freedom to come when you please.) Some Gaudí exteriors can be viewed at no charge, including Casa Milà, a huge structure on the corner of Carrer de Provença and Passeig de Gràcia, which is shaped like a giant sea creature. Or maybe a spaceship. Or maybe a mysterious ancient quarry, as indicated by its nickname, the Pedrera. I did pony up for the admission, and it was worth the price — the building was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.
Commissioned by an industrialist and built when Gaudí was in his creative prime, the structure was designed as apartments. Aspects of the natural and unnatural coexist in a symbiotic paradox: While wholly artificial and flashy in certain aspects, the facade resembles a piece of coral smoothed by the ocean, and the sea-creature-like figures adorning the rooftop made me feel as if I were inside an aquarium. A promotional video suggests that the house wasn’t created by Gaudí, but rather by nature itself, and it’s difficult to disagree. Don’t forget to make use of the informative audio tour, which is free with admission.
Another Gaudí creation I visited, the Güell Palace, preceded Casa Milà by about 20 years, and it shows. Again commissioned by a wealthy industrialist, the mansion lacks the whimsy and playfulness of some of his later works, with parts of the mansion seeming downright gothic and cathedral-like (religious services were once held in the palace). The entrance fee is lower than that of Casa Milà, 12 euros. Down the street from the palace is a 365 Cafe, a convenient pit stop for a quick coffee (1.15 euros) and a minicroissant (35 cents).
But one does not live by architecture alone. Finding a good cheap place to stay is the challenge. Among the worn, labyrinthine streets of the Ciutat Vella (Old City), decent lodging options can easily run upward of $200 a night. I decided to exchange the convenience of being in the city center to save a few dollars. A Holiday Inn Express in the Sant Martí neighborhood, at $129 per night on Priceline, did the trick.
The free breakfast was nice, and the location, a 25-minute walk from Ciutadella Park, gave me an opportunity to see Barcelona the way it was meant to be seen — on foot. Still, my Barcelona travel card (14.50 euros for two days’ unlimited use of public transport and 21.20 for three days; 10 percent discount if purchased online) came in handy — just not as much as I had anticipated. The Barcelona Metro station nearest to my hotel wasn’t convenient to most places I wanted to go. I found the bus system more useful, and the travel card seemed to fail when I needed it most — most of the night bus routes to my lodgings were run by a private entity, Tusgsal, which didn’t accept the card.
What was I doing out so late, anyway? Carousing, imbibing, aimlessly walking the dark stone streets, stopping to hear a musician serenading passers-by near one of the city’s many old churches, or to watch a couple of children re-enacting that evening’s Barcelona-Juventus soccer match against a wall off the Carrer del Carme. An evening might begin at Bar Brutal, a place with plenty of personality and permanent marker on the walls, and thoughtful cuisine that did not break the bank.
The codfish served under an impossibly light cloud of fluffy potato (10 euros) was heavenly, and balanced wonderfully with a generous drizzle of citrus oil. A diverse cheese plate (11 euros) with a cow’s milk Comté, two goat’s milk options and a blue made from sheep’s milk, went well with my cheap glass of Saltamartí tinto. “I love a cheese plate,” a man named Olivier, said to me from down the bar. He explained that a good plate is like a geographical map — you can look at it and say, “This cheese is from this region here; this one from over here.”
Tapas are a must, of course, and you’ll find none better than at Xarcuteria La Pineda, a small store and delicatessen with several tables. Many of the offerings at La Pineda are pintxos (pronounced pinchos), which are a Basque thing — snacks with a small wooden stick driven through them (pintxo means spike). I loved my Gilda pintxo (2.10 euros), a couple of fat green olives sandwiching a folded anchovy and chili pepper, as well as a slightly larger bite, a small square of spinach pastry fastened to a piece of artichoke and a sun-dried tomato (2.25 euros). Washed down with a bottle of Estrella Galicia beer (1.60 euros), it was the ideal afternoon snack.
This was all merely fuel, of course, to continue my exploration of Gaudí. The Sagrada Família, looming like a castle in the sky, almost blinded me with its prodigiousness when I emerged from the Metro station. Interestingly, Gaudí began his work on this project relatively early in his career, assuming control of its construction in 1883, and worked on it for over four decades until his death. The astonishing basilica, consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, has been in a near-constant state of construction and is scheduled for completion in 2026. Its Jesus Christ tower, at 566 feet, will make it Europe’s tallest cathedral.
And how does it look? Wondrous. Outlandish. Certainly unlike any church I’ve ever been in. (Admission is 15 euros; add another 9 if you’d like a guided tour.) Jaw-droppingly tall columns branch out like trees near the top; the stonework is so clean it looks as if it’s folded out of paper; the stained-glass windows showcase the spectrum of the rainbow.
The building has certainly been divisive. George Orwell called it “one of the most hideous buildings in the world” while Salvador Dalí had a different perspective: “Those who have not tasted his superbly creative bad taste,” he said, “are traitors.”
Not quite as well known is Gaudí’s Casa Batlló, built between 1904 and 1906, though it might be his most characteristic work. The imaginative, mischievous structure is like something out of “Alice in Wonderland” or Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory: Colorful, playful shapes and glittering bits of glass are engaged in a spectacular dialogue with sensual curved woods in a way that seems to perfectly capture the light filtering in from the Passeig de Gràcia. Again, Gaudí’s respect for nature is clear. Walking through the attic, with its many catenary arches, seems like walking through the rib cage of a whale.
The accompanying audio guide (complimentary with the 23.50-euro timed ticket) is a bit breathless at times, but it pointed out something that deepened my understanding of his work: The Casa Batlló, it said, “is a house that is meant to be touched.” Suddenly, so much of the design and curvature of the house made sense.
I began to focus on the human element of the building: The warmth of the house and its materials. The serpentine wooden railings seemed as if they were meant to have hands running along them. The door handles struck me as clunky and oddly shaped until I touched one; modeled on Gaudí’s own hand, it fit my grasp perfectly. It seemed only logical that in one of Europe’s most thrilling cities, its greatest architect would focus on the sensual.
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