It's funny. When doing a search for Barcelona using Google, Barcelona City's Wikipedia
page comes up first, followed immediately by Barcelona's football club. FC Barcelona
are barca's they're sometimes called. Anything thereafter for the next several hits has solely
to do with soccer. Searching the word Barcelona directs you to soccer. That's Barca, baby.
Kissed and lapped by the Mediterranean is how Lonely Planet so beautifully describes it. They
also say Barcelona is a dynamo where people work hard and play hard. A magnet for architecture,
bus, foodies, and night owls. It's a pleasure for all the senses. And believe me, for what I've seen
so far, festival or no festival, Spain is a country that truly doesn't sleep. Never mind the young
folks, I've seen many a granny out having coffee well into midnight. Life pulsates at high
pressure through the street to this compact city, an economic powerhouse. Barcelona displays a zest
for life, artistic genius, and sense of style few cities can rival. It also seems to be in a
permanent state of self-renewal. It's skyline constantly altering as neglected districts
come in for their beauty treatment. That's Barca, baby.
When you love, you do it somehow. When you fall, shout out to John. When you scream, don't make this sound.
Blink once if you're alive. Blink once if you're alive.
Barcelona's medieval boom period left it with one of Europe's most impressive Gothic legacies.
Centuries later, the modernista is led by Antoni Gardi cast an unparalleled whimsical
art nouveau splash across the city. Today, Atlantic's of international design stars is adding to
this impressive heritage with landmark 21st century buildings. With 1.62 million inhabitants,
Spain's second city is bilingual, the mother tongue being Catalan, and the other, of course, Spanish.
If you only have one day to spend in Barcelona, one thing you need to see is Sagrada Familia.
He started creating it, I think, in early age when he was like in 20s or something like that.
He didn't actually complete this particular cathedral when he died. As a matter of fact,
it's still being developed to this day. It's being funded by a lot of Japanese investors,
actually. The expected deadline for completion is actually 2020. So, that's a great cathedral to
check out. It's very innovative, it's very refined, but it's still a work in progress.
The Sagrada Familia inspires awe by its sheer verticality and in the manner of medieval
cathedrals it emulates. It's still under construction after more than 100 years. When
completed, the highest tower will be more than half as high as the ones here today.
As unfinished as it may be, it still attracts 2.8 million visitors a year and is the most visited
monument in Spain.
A few months before he died, Gadi was able to see the pinnacle of the
bell tower on the nativity facade, finished and decorated with colorful Venetian mosaics.
About the pinnacle, Gadi said, look at the top. Is it not true that it seems to unite heaven and
earth? This burst of mosaics is the first thing sailors will see when approaching Barcelona.
It will be a radiant welcome.
Okay, more weirdness from Gadi. Casaballo, one of the strangest residential buildings in Europe.
This is Gadi at his hallucinogenic best. One of the three houses on the block, this one is
sprinkled with bits of blue, mauve and green tiles, studded with wave-shaped window frames
and balconies and rises to an uneven, beam-tiled roof with a solitary tower.
La Pridera, this undulating beast of a madcap, Gadi masterpiece, built in 1905 to 1910,
is a combined apartment and office block, formerly called Casamela La Pridera, which
means a quarry, gets its name because of its uneven gravestone facade.
