Walk to Parc Guell

From the very first visit to Barcelona the kids have been enamored with a Gaudi scultpure of a lizard from Parc Guell. They named him Jeff. And Jeff, is everywhere. He is a staple for Barcelona souveniers. We even picked up a couple of Jeffs for our own collection. But, we'd never made it to Parc Guell. Yesterday, we finally got to see the statue in person.

The parc was designed by Antonio Gaudi and was built between 1900 and 1914. It was originally designed as a housing development offering a garden atmosphere with a beautiful view of the city. But only two houses were ever built and none of them sold. I believe Gaudi himself bought one for his family. It is a bit of a walk from the train station but we're used to that by now. This is the main stairs at the entrance of the parc.

Below are the houses that sit on either side of the entrance. They are both rather fantastical. I think one is the Gaudi house which is currently a museum. It contains some furniture that Gaudi designed himself.

I think the houses look rather like a gingerbread house. It's inspired us for our own gingerbread design. We'll be working on it shortly after Thanksgiving.

The kids by the wall on the steps. I love the tile work here. Each square is different and they are all stunning.

The kids finally getting a close up look at the real Jeff. Somehow they thought he was bigger. This Jeff is actually a repaired Jeff. The original was destroyed by vandals in 2007.

Some of the ceiling tiles underneath the porch.

Gaudi designed this wavy section of the porch as seating. This is actually the outside view of the seats. The tiled wave covers the entire exterior of the porch.

The view from the seats...looking out over Barcelona. It was actually a cloudy day. I think those two spires off to the left in the distance are the Sagrada Familia. I'm told you can see it on a clear day and it's really not that far from the parc.

The kids on the bench that waves around the porch.

Andrea's idea for a Christmas card photo was to stand on either side of these giant pillars. I'm not sure it works for the cards but it did come out cute.

There is a tunneled walk way through the parc. The interior has an unusual arc to it, like it's leaning. We didn't get a good picture of that because there was a lot of tourist groups waiting to do that. The outside columns are interesting though each a little different, some more polished than others.

I thought several of the iron gates looked like butterfly wings. One pair was a bit too high for my kids but these seemed perfect. A bunch of butterflies...

A view from the cafe...

There was so much of the parc we haven't seen. I think the focal points of the parc are mostly at the entrance but there is a lot of walking trails and other things to see throughout the parc. We had arrived at the parc around 4 pm though and it was darker because of the weather. So we started heading back to the train stopping to admire more Jeffs and other tiled souveniers along the way. We're looking forward to going back with our friends and family when they visit.

Love you all!