Hello Young Adventurers!

Locations Visited: Barcelona, Spain. Monserrat, Spain
Languages Spoken: Spanish
Words learned: un poco– a little

Y’all… I love Barcelona.  This is a city that I never planned to actually go to this trip, but it fit in with my schedule, so I figured I would check it out.  I prepared for two or three days here, and then head on my way to somewhere else until I meet up with my friend from the Netherlands, and instead I found myself never wanting to leave.  I can’t wait to share the recent few days here with you!

Saturday morning, I woke up and took my time.  My big goal was to go see and walk inside La Sagrada Familia, the beautiful church I got to see in passing on my bike tour the day before.  I had a scheduled tour time at 12:45, so I grabbed some breakfast and made my way slowly through the city, enjoying the sights and sounds as I walked.  When I got inside, I was blown away.  I have never seen something so beautiful and impressive in my life.

La Sagrada Familia was designed by the architect, Antoni Gauldi.  Gauldi grew up here in Barcelona, and is considered to be one of the most skilled architects to ever live.  For those that don’t know- and architect is someone who designs buildings and ensures they are built safely, properly, and functionally.  If you love art and design, but not painting or anything like that, this could be an amazing career for you one day.  If you are a successful architect, your buildings and designs will stand for a very long time, and like Gauldi, you can leave your mark on this planet for everyone to see.

Gauldi loved nature.  He loved to incorporate nature within all of his designs.  In this basilica, he was inspired by the forests, so if you look at these pictures, the pillars look like trees, and the ceiling looks like sun coming through the leaves in a forest towards the ground.  Everywhere you look, there was a surprise.  The stained glass is all throughout the basilica, and as the sun moves through the day, the entire church changes color with it.  The crazy part is- it’s not even complete yet.  It is planned to be completed in 2026, the 100th anniversary of the year that Gauldi passed away.  I already know I am going to come back one day to see it as it was meant to be, and I cannot wait.  What do you see in these pictures of La Sagrada Familia?

After La Sagrada Familia, I met some friends to go explore Mont Juic, a small “mountain” within the city that has a huge modern art museum on top, and incredible views of the city.  We were so excited because the museum was free to visit that day, so we wandered through the beautiful paintings for a while, before appreciating the view of Barcelona from the top of the mountain.

We were starving by this point, and we had a plan to go to a street called Carrer de Blai, and eat pinxos.  My tour guide the day before recommended it, and y’all… it was AMAZING.   Basically, pinxos are small bite-sized foods of all types on a small piece of bread. There are SO many types, and what you do is you go into any restaurant, grab a plate, and then you put whatever pinxos you want on your plate.  When you’re done eating, you take the toothpicks in them, and you bring them to the cash register, and they charge you based on how many toothpicks you have.  It was so easy, and the food was the best I’ve had on this trip so far.  We went to three different restaurants and had only a few pinxos at each one so that we could try as many different ones as possible.  We had a blast, and the people here were so kind.  Honestly… I’m still dreaming of the food. It was that good.  Anyways, bellies full, we made our way back to the hostel, and we all went to bed early so that we could do some tours the next day.

The next morning, we had a tour at 10AM we had to be up and ready for.  Some friends from my hostel and I all headed out, and we learned so much.  We learned all about the Roman Gothic influence on the city of Barcelona, and we saw some incredible sights like the first school of the arts in Spain, as well as the school where Gauldi attended when he was a kid and a stunning Cathedral.  I love learning the history of all these cities, y’all.  It’s incredible to get to step back into time and see these places that are hundreds- sometimes THOUSANDS- of years old!

My favorite part though, was a total accident.  At the end of the tour, we ended at this beautiful Cathedral, and outside was a traditional Catalan band playing music in the square with people doing traditional Catalonian dances, laughing, and enjoying the sunshine.  I had never heard traditional Catalonian music before, and I got to see two new instruments I’ve never seen before!  Both were instruments that use reeds to vibrate and make a sound, and look similar to the oboe and clarinet.  Their names are the Tible and the Tenora.  I had to ask around until I could fins someone who could actually teach me about them, but I had to find out.  I finally learned how to upload videos- so check it out!  How does this music make you feel?  Do you want to get up and dance as well? 

Following the tour, we grabbed lunch and met up with another friend before heading to the Place Guell- a mansion designed by Gualdi for the Guell family of Barcelona.  We got to walk through it, and it made me think a lot of the Biltmore in Asheville with extravagant rooms, stunning designs, and amazing to think about the fact that people used to live there!  There was even a full organ.  Inside the house.  It was amazing- especially because the organ was playing when we got into the room, and I absolutely love organs.

The rest of the day, was just about relaxing and taking some time to write.  These days are incredible, and they’re really exhausting.  I keep having to make sure I take time to stop, breathe, and take care of myself.  Although!  My friends and I went to a restaurant that evening to see a traditional Flamenco performance, which included a singer, a guitar player, and a dancer.  Check it out!

The next morning, my new friend Neeharika and I planned to get up and go visit Montserrat, a monastery in the mountains of Spain about an hour away.  We heard the view was amazing, the church was beautiful, and that there was a world famous boy’s choir there that sometimes you can even hear sing!  We were so excited, so we packed a picnic lunch and headed out.  

Friends, I have never seen mountains like these before.  When we got there we had the option to take a bus up to the top, or to ride a cable car lift over the gorge below.  Although I am not a huge fan of heights, I could not pass up the view, and so we jumped on the cable car and rode up!  The views were incredible. We were hundreds of feet up in the air, and we could see for miles all around us as we made our way up to the monastery.
 

Once we got up to Montserrat, we immediately made our way to the church because the boys choir happened to be performing that day!  This choir is made up of all young boys who have some of the most beautiful voices I have ever heard. The boys attend school here starting in their 4th and 5th years of school, and have to audition and train to be able to attend.  Many grow up to become performers and composers later in life.

After exploring the church a bit more we went to see “the Black Madonna,” a famous statue that according to legend was found in a cave on the mountain, but couldn’t be moved, so they built a monastery around it.  By this point, we were starving, so Neeharika and I made our way up to the picnic area and had our own pintos-inspired lunch overlooking the mountains.  We were so happy just sitting there, sharing travel stories and appreciating the beautiful views.  This is still my favorite part of traveling- meeting and learning the stories of new people, and getting to make new friends around the world.

Check out the video of the decent below!

We didn’t stay much longer, and decided to head back to Barcelona.  We first got to go back down on the cable car, though!  The view was even better on our way down… and definitely a lot scarier!  When we got back to Barcelona, we took some time relax, and then Neeharika, our friend John, and I decided to go grab some tapas and gelato to celebrate out last night together in Barcelona before we all headed out on our separate ways the next morning.  John was heading to Valencia, Spain.  Neeharika was heading to Berlin, Germany.  And I’m heading back to the City of Lights to meet another friend for a few more adventures.  Do you know where I’m going?  I’ll see you guys there!

Have Courage, & Be Kind,

Mr. Weavil