Friday, February 25, 2000
Barcelona, Spain
You can click on any picture to see it larger
Park Güell
This is the entrance to Park Güell, a Gaudí creation (note that it's Gaudí and not Gaudy).
The park was designed in 1900 as was the idea of Count Eusebi Güell. Güell envisioned a miniature garden city of houses for the wealthy, in landscaped grounds. It was a commercial flop and was abandoned in 1914 (only two houses were built). By then though, Gaudí had already created 1.5 miles of roads and walkways, two gatehouses and a plaza. The city bought the estate in 1922 and made it a public park.
Just inside the entrance is this mini waterfall and the tiled staircase leading up to the park.
The mosaic dragon/lizard is about 3/4 of the way up the stairs. Behind the dragon is a bench carved into a wall and mosaic of the smiling dragon of Saint George which is just in front of the lizard.
At the top of the stairs is the Sala Hipóstila, or the Hall of Columns which is a forest of 84 stone columns, that was intended as a market. The ceiling is all done in tiles and it is beautiful.
Built on top of the columns is a open area with a tiled bench that runs around it's perimeter (in a serpentine).
These are the gatehouses that we entered through at the front of the park. We took this picture from the open area above the columned place.
Then we walked down to one of the passage ways that is a viaduct. These are all around the park, and some are designed a little different.
I needed to switch cartridges in the camera and Mackenzie wanted to see what I was doing.
Another walkway in the park.
Though there was much more to see in the park we were just tired, so we grabbed an ice cream and found a nice bench in the grass area. We sat eating our ice cream and people watching.
On to Saturday