Biking Through the City
If you get a chance to take a bike tour through a city that you happen to be vacationing in, I recommend it. First off, I like biking and I bike nearly every day of my life (I have not owed a car in over 25 years) So I have no choice but to embrace biking. It's the best way to get around a city in a pretty fast and efficient way (weather permitting). Barcelona can be hard to traverse because of the narrow streets, and I thought I knew how to get to my rendezvous point. Lucky for me I left the hotel with an "hour" to get to my meet up. I have been to this square the day before and knew it was about a half an hour from my hotel. In classic fashion I took a wrong turn a few times and did not get to the rendezvous point till 10:55 AM. that was kind of stressful because I was really looking forward on going on this bike tour, and I did not want them to leave without me.
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Once I got to the meet up location, we got our bikes which were your classic European cruising bike (Which had a very strange feel compared to my bike back home.) Bikes are a lot like golf clubs; each bike and each club have its own "Feel". So, once I got used to the "feel" we were sort of on our way. Our first stop was the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia. I was actually here the day prior, so I thought I knew all about it. (I was wrong) But my guide was pretty awesome and filled me in on a lot of the history of the church that I was not going to read in book somewhere.
We then headed cross town to our next stop which was the Arch of Victory, which is a memorial arch. It was built by architect Josep Vilaseca I Casanovas as the main access gate for the 1888 Barcelona World Fair. The Arch crosses over the wide central promenade of the Passeig de Lluís Companys, leading to the Ciutadella Park that now occupies the site of the world fair. It is located at the northern end of the promenade, facing the Passeig de Sant Joan. My hotel was located right down the street from this Arch, but I did not know its history. My bike guide did and its pretty interesting. Instead of this Arch being build Gustaf Eiffel was prepared to erect the Eiffel Tower here for the world's fair. However, the people of Barcelona did not like or want that steel structure built so they went with the Arch design by the architect Josep Vilaseca I Casanovas!!! Crazy how one of the most famous structures in the world was almost build here but the people did not want it. (Which was true for Paris as well, but that's a story for another day.)
After leaving the Arch of Victory we headed to our next stop, which was the Sagrada Família, which is a church under construction in the Eixample district of Barcelona. It is the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world. Designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). To put it mildly this is a pretty cool church and was glad we did a swing by to check it out. Our guide gave us some cool incite and history on this church. (Since I had toured this church 20 years ago I decided not to do it this time.) But I was able to walk around for about 20 minutes to take some really cool pictures from the outside of the church. This church when first being constructed Relied solely on private donations, Sagrada Família's construction progressed slowly and was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War. Then in July 1936, anarchists from the FAI set fire to the crypt and broke their way into the workshop, partially destroying Gaudí's original plans. So the fact that there was not much movement on this church for like 50 years did not help in its completion. I have a hunch this church will never be complete because they have only been working on it since March of 1882. Our guide said it will be completed in 2032. (We will see).
The last stop on this tour was the beaches of Barcelona. I was digging the beaches. It was very chill and not humid or windy right on the water. I can see why the beaches get packed in the summer.
This featured blog entry was written by DC Dave from the blog Barcelona, Spain (2025).
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