Spain - Park Güell, Barcelona

It may seem that I was in a gingerbread house wonderland... but no. I was in Park Güell, Barcelona, and when people say "Barcelona", it has to be Antoni Gaudi.

We entered from the back side of the park. There were hundreds of stairs to climb before we reached the gate, and the gate is not the entrance to what I would call the gingerbread house wonderland (or officially, the Municipal Garden).

One sad thing I found was this graffitti:

I'm not sure why. I saw a number of locals jogging in the park, but they don't seem bothered by the tourists. Anyways, I don't find the locals unfriendly to tourists. At the very least, I don't feel any hostility towards the tourists. Maybe it was just a prank. I mean, if you truly love a place and don't want tourists to - let's say - destroy the properties or something, then you shouldn't vandalize it right?

Well, here's a little snippet of the gingerbread houses from the top of the park.

Man, even from far away, the structures are just so gorgeous!

To view the Municipal Garden, you'd have to pay 8 euros. Otherwise, the entrance to the park itself is free. There was a relatively short line to enter this attraction (as compared to the line to enter Sagrada Familia).

If you bought the ticket, you'll be provided with a guide map. I didn't really use the map because you can't really get lost in the Municipal Garden. The Municipal Garden itself is not very big.

 The first weird structure in the Municipal Garden was this viaduct. Very typical of Gaudi: it's not something I can understand, but it made me amazed nevertheless.

And then there is a fancy pavilion close to another entrance of Park Güell. It's just really hard to deny that this looks like a fancy gingerbread house with white sugar icing on top.

Oh, and that's not all. The terrace was stunning!

It's really full of wonders.

I had the chance to take a close up photo of the famous salamander (or also known as el drac). Apparently, this salamander was once vandalized in 2007, and then was restored.

I think it's really worth the money, time and effort to visit the park. We spent only about an hour here because we only had 2 and a half days in Barcelona.

Gaudi's works never stop to amaze me.