My Escapes Spain Barcelona Exploring Gaudí's Sprawling Surreal Barcelona Gaudí's Surreal Güell Park

Gaudí's Surreal Güell Park

The surreal Güell Park is on my "not to miss attractions" list for Barcelona.
Gaudí's surreal park is a garden complex like none other... it's a place where beautiful Art Nouveau buildings and fresh green vegetation play together in harmony.

The park was designed by Antoni Gaudí and Josep Maria Jujol at the order of Count Eusebi Güell. The construction had taken 14 years to finalize (1900-1914).

Gaudí was mostly responsible for the structural architecture, part of the design, but many fine details (like the ceramic fragment works on the terrace) are actually Jujol's work.
It's vast... more than 17 hectares and it's considered the largest architectural work in the entire Southern Europe. The park is also on UNESCO's World Heritage Sites list...

You can get close to it by reaching the Vallcarca metro station, but you can also reach it from the Lesseps metro station. Either way you'll have to walk a lot. It took me about an hour to find it from Vallcarca. It was tiring, because I had to climb stairs and walk upwards across a hilly area.

So, it's better getting there by taxi.

But I didn't use the main entrance... I simply didn't find it, when wandering in the residential area.
So, I arrived in from the southern side of the park, through a smaller entrance (prolly rather an exit!).

I admit my photos weren't the best quality, because I got there late in the afternoon. First, the Sun was strong (shining almost horizontally - there was frontal light from the wrong direction), as it was setting... secondly, as it had set, darkness started setting in...

The Güell Park is home to several unique attractions within - apart from the beautiful exotic vegetation, the bridges, viaducts, terraces...
Speaking of exotic vegetation... There are gigantic aloe vera plants almost everywhere. It can hurt if you get slammed into one of those huge leaves that also have sharp edges. I already know how that feels.

The Gaudí House-Museum is a pink fairy tale-like towery building (check the official website for additional info). Of course, I visited it and the interiors were astounding. There are plenty of furniture pieces designed by Antoni Gaudí.

The artist is said to have lived here for about 2 decades (until 1925)!

The pink towery Art Nouveau building functions as a museum since 1963.

Back in the past, the area where the park is located, used to be a rural area, part of an independent township.

Catalan industrialist, Eusebi Güell i Bacigalupi acquired an estate and wanted to create a residential development area.
They were planning to construct approximately 60 houses.

Unfortunately the project wasn't finalized.

Imagine how it would have looked like with that many Gaudí buildings.
I would love to live in a green area full of beautiful Gaudí-designed buildings.

Of course, the pink home of Gaudí looks wonderful from outside. I also have to mention the vast amount of palms that surround it. And, there are peculiar-shaped statue-like "things" in the garden around the house.

Another iconic attraction is Gaudí's salamander. Iconic to Barcelona. The mosaic-covered colourful huge lizard is found at the entrance.

The 2 Güell Pavilions are found at the entrance. One building on each side. You can see these two "delicious" buildings on most postcards. These are also iconic to Barcelona!

The main terrace is supported by doric columns. This is also in front of the main entrance to the park.
It's marvelous how a huge platform is supported by so many pillars... I actually arrived at the terrace from the back end, not knowing that the huge platform is actually supported by so many pillars!

One wouldn't even imagine - the entire thing is in the air!

Seats are found up there and it's a good viewpoint over the area in front of the park.

It's a romantic site. Of course, it was filled with couples and families.
I could hardly find a seat to take a photo of, after long minutes of waiting and searching.

The area around the park is a dense residential district. There are a few slumish buildings and dirty streets, plenty of stray cats roaming around.

Comments

comments powered by Disqus