Slow Down

Spain is divided into seven Autonomous Communities that recognize the “rights and nationalities” of these regions, but the Spanish Constitution declares the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”. This past week I traveled to two of the capitals of these Autonomous Communities. I began and ended my week in Barcelona, the capital of the region know as Catalonia. And during the week I visited Valencia, the capital of the region of Valencia. These two cities are also among the most populous in Spain: Madrid is the largest then comes Barcelona followed by Valencia.

The first city I visited was Barcelona it is a lot more touristy than Valencia and is a perfect city for a young crowd. We stayed on the most famous strip, La Rambla. The street name “rambla” refers to an “intermittent water flow” in Spanish and “sandy riverbed” in Arabic. This is because La Rambla used to be a small stream flowing just outside the city walls, then in the 19^th century the city wall was torn down and the river dried up. As a young adult I loved staying in the middle of everything. If you stay on La Rambla be prepared to hear noises throughout the entire night, many of the bars don’t get busy until after midnight and clubs don’t get crowded until two making it a late night for many city visitors. Another thing to be aware about on La Rambla is the pick pocketing. Because the street is full of tourists and so much is going on around you it’s easy to forget about your purse or pockets. Speaking from personal experience, I traveled in a group of six girls and three out of the six of us got their wallets stolen.

http://www.aviewoncities.com/barcelona/rambla.htm

The second city I visited was Valencia, here we stayed right in the city center. One of the most recognizable buildings in the main plaza is the Cathedral of Valencia. There are a couple really unique aspects to this church. First, most Christian historians believe that the chalice in the church is the Holy Grail, meaning it’s the cup used at the Last Supper. Another feature of the Cathedral that is easily over looked is the number of different architecture styles used in one building. Overall, the Cathedral of Valencia is mainly Gothic, but shows influences of Romanesque, Renaissance, Baroque and neoclassical. When touring the church, these things were pointed out to me but I could have easily overlooked such a little detail.

One thing I noticed in both Valencia and Barcelona is how amazing the architecture is. Take for example, the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia. Santiago Calatrave and Feliz Candela designed this city and both these architects modeled their buildings off of different living things. For example, the Imax Cinema is built based on the shape of the eye, the science center is modeled after the skeleton of a whale and the Opera house is the most noticeable because it’s shaped as a fish. Even the columns holding some of these structures up are shaped like trees. This was one of my favorite places to visit in Valencia, because the architecture is something you can’t see anywhere else and is so different then what is found in the old city or city center in Valencia.

http://www.valenciavalencia.com/sights-guide/cas.htm

Another one of my favorite things we did in Spain was visiting Park Guell by Antoni Gaudi. I liked how it over looked the entire city and how peaceful it was compared to the upbeat La Rambla. Park Guell is a little bit of a trek but is well worth it. The amount of detail that Gaudi put into everything is remarkable, mainly the use of the tiles that form the bench around the parks edge. Tiling was one of the themes I noticed in Spain, for example, in Valencia they used tile to adorn the sides of buildings with religious pictures. Plus, when you go to the park you have to see the lizard/dragon to fully understand all the little figurines modeled after it.

http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/gaudi/park-guell.html

My main advice to anyone who is traveling to Spain is to slow down and look at everything around you. The Spaniards put a lot of emphasis in the details and they can be easy to overlook.