Parc Güell

After classes this morning and a delicious lunch at home with Amparo and Alicia, I met up with several other Dartmouth students to tour Parc Güell. The park was designed by Antoni Gaudí and built in the early 1900s. Amparo got really excited when I told her that I was going to see Parc Güell, but I had no idea what to expect.

It's is made up a network of trails through trees, elevated stone elements, caves, intricate mosaics, and houses that look like life-size gingerbread houses with lots of bright colors. Everywhere you turn, there is  something different. The park is really big! We walked around for more than 2 hours and never covered the same ground twice. I'm surprised we found our way out because it would be very easy to get lost in there!

Here are some photos I took during our walk through the park.

For more info and photos, check out the wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_G%C3%BCell)

This is one of the gingerbread houses.

The houses are open to the public to tour! So of course we wandered through the house, which had no 90˚ angles and the inside was all painted a bright shade of purple. This is the view out the 3rd-floor window of one of the gingerbread houses.

We took the metro there, and I'm not so great with directions, so I had no idea where in the city we were, until we reached the top of the park (it's on a mountain) and we could see for miles in every direction. It was amazing! From the viewpoint, I could see Montjuic (where all the Olympic stadiums are), Las Ramblas, the University, Sagrada Familia, and all the way to the ocean. It was neat to be able to recognize a number of landmarks. It's a sign that I'm starting to get my bearings in the city.

This is part of the amazing view from the top of the park. The mountain is Montjuic, and just to the left of it you can see a little bit of the ocean!

This is a zoomed-in photo from the top of the park. The castle is La Sagrada Familia, which is GIGANTIC compared to everything around it!

¡Hasta Mañana!