The guidebooks warn that the closest metro or bus stop to Park Guell is a good 15 minute walk. By driving into Barcelona (we’ve completely abandoned the idea of taking the train), we shaved about 400 meters off the trek. What the guidebooks fail to adequately point out is that the walk to the park is uphill. Up a very steep hill. So steep that the city installed long escalators to help with the climb. (There are stairs alongside for the hearty. Or foolish.)
Our first… vital… stop once we got to the park was the bathroom. Which was not especially close to the entrance. Naturally there was a long line. More unexpected the bathroom attendant who doled out woefully small rations of toilet paper. I will simply say that we are all very fortunate that I had a travel packet of Kleenex in my pocket.
Kaitlyn really enjoyed the park. I hoped she would, but was a little worried since it’s an unfinished housing development donated to the city and left as such… not a traditional park with big chunks of grass to run on or swings to swing on. She had looked at some pictures in a book t his morning and really enjoyed finding the things she had seen in the pictures. Her favorite was the lizard statue… because it looks just like her little foam lizard we bought earlier.
When we walked through the Gaudi museum, which is inside a model home he’d built, Kaitlyn made up stories about each room and how much work it was for her guy to paint the ceilings, etc. I didn’t learn a thing about Gaudi, but had fun with Kaitlyn. I figure I can buy a book about him.
Perhaps if one tips excessively, the toilet paper monitor would grant proportionately more paper. The part about Kaitlyn describing her guy’s workload to do these rooms is a hoot. Wait until her next trip to Rancho Mirage.