The morning of our full day in Barcelona (Tuesday 22nd) we decided to devote it to some Gaudi, after transferring hostels (by time we booked demand was very high). Second hostel was in same chain, Sant Jordi, and possibly even better than the other one given it was purpose-built.
Caught the Metro across town to the Vallarca stop and made the climb to Park Guell. Except most of the street that you climb up has been escalatorised! We were glad that there is at least a few hundred metres of walking though, makes the views more rewarding. The park was built from 1900 to 1914, was designed by Gaudi and financed by a wealthy guy (Count Guell) who had commissioned Gaudi's first works. Guell wanted to create a serene garden city in Barcelona, with 60 plots on which your house could occupy only a smallish fraction. In classic Iberian vision-exceeds-execution fashion, construction stopped in 1914 after only three plots had been sold. The silver lining though is that now it is a public space, with some cool architecture (see photos coming up) and great views out across Barcelona.
After walking back down we caught the metro to the Sagrada Familia, the other great Gaudi unfinished work. He designed it, and work has been underway almost continuously since 1882. It's supposed to have 18 towers at the end but they've got plenty to go to finish it in the target year of 2026. Its a highly polarising building. The scale and grandeur are certainly impressive, and I love the modernista influence in places. But it is quite over the top, and very scatter-brained. I hope to see it again, completed, and make another personal judgement then.
That evening we returned to the hostel and cooked a proper meal of pasta (having subsisted on fruit, tuna sandwiches, and salad for the entire festival) and then got boozed at the hostel with others. Alex and Irene from the Venice hostel randomly turned up, I've never spoken so much Russian in my recent life as I have on this trip!
Another too-early wakeup call on Wednesday morning to get to the train station by Metro, to catch the bus to Reus airport (one of two 'Barcelona' airports Ryanair flies out of). Thank goodness we didn't just wait out the front of the station, as the bus left from a mostly-obscured stop that you can't see on exiting the station. Luckily we got the bus for the earlier Ryanair flight, which saved us some stress when traffic made the journey 2 hours instead of 1.5.
So we played 500 in the carpark of this tinny little regional airport underneath a tree, packed and re-packed our stuffs, and went to check-in. Joe came in 1kg over allowance (€15), and I came in 0.5 under! This was despite having picked up a 3kg tent - i did it by putting everything heavy into my hand luggage, it's the Ryanair way! The flight ended up being delayed an hour, which through out Kieran's pickup at the London Luton end.
Then when we landed the queue for non-EU passports took about 45 minutes, and after some probing questions, that had all taken so long that our bags were nowhere to be seen. Because Luton is a hellhole budget airline airport, there were of course no airline staff round, so we just had to watch all four baggage carousels until, finally our bags appeared. Relief! Then Joe met his sister and we parted ways on different trains, Joe for London and me for Bedford, where I saw Kieran for the first time in at least two years.
He drove me to the quaint village of Riseley, which as Menna (Kieran's girlfriend) calls it, is 'gateway to the whops'. But it is a great wee place, got the walking tour round the village yesterday from Menna (she grew up here) and saw houses built in the 1400s and 1500s and a Norman church from the 1100s - amazing! The night I arrived, I'd been in the village two minutes before Kieran pulled over to say hello to some cricketing mates, and I was instantly recruited into the team.
The game was last night on the village green. We had 3 players plus 4 ring-ins, against Henlow's B-team of 11 men. They smashed 124 off 16 overs, but not before a few nice dismissals. Kieran was keeping and got a great single-handed catch down leg side, while I caught the captain out at backward square leg for a golden duck! Nobody was more surprised than I... Our batting performance was atrocious, all out for 21, so we lost handsomely. Then over to the pub for an excellent steak burger to put us all to sleep.
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