Barcelona : Day 8 : 22 Oct 2008

Our last Gaudi building was Casa Batllo, pronounced as "Ba-ti-yo". It was located at Passeig de Gracia, and we took around 30 minutes by walking from Hostel Mendoza. We were reluctant to go in initially due to the ticket price of E16.50/pax (~RM83). But we decided to because of its unique design and beauty. The building next to it was also a famous one, but by another architect. It is known as Casa Amatler, and was closed for renovation.


> Facade

From outside, the first thing you noticed is the facade design. The balcony took the "Phantom of the Opera" mask shape, while the roof simulated the dragon-body shape. Other than these, you can also find bones shape and colorful ceramic plates pasted the outer wall. It sure looked different compared to its neighbours and no doubt this was my 2nd favourite building after Sagrada Familia.


> Model of Casa Batllo before and after renovation

The high entrance fee actually included the audio guide, and it came as handy as there wasn't any info pasted to describe the "whats and whys". Though, Casa Batllo is smaller than Casa Mila, it can be seen that Gaudi spent more time and brain power to design it as the interior was much more elaborated. It seemed there wasn't a surface in the house is flat.


> Interior


> Our signatures


> Rear balcony


> Roof top

We ended our Barcelona league with a visit to Montserrat. It was a not-so-well known hill-top attraction. Getting there cost E14.50, consisting of a journey by commuter train from Espanya station to Montserrat-Aeri and cable car. The journey took 1 hr 20 min, towards northern Barcelona. The beauty of Montserrat lie on the shapes of the hills, that looked like fingers or ubi kayu. We went there for this reason, but others go there to visit the Monastery that contains the Black Virgin Mary statue.



Going up, we took the cable car with only us and the driver. Being a hilly area, the temperature differed very much from Barcelona. It could easily be 15oC on that day, and gave us the impression and feeling of being back in Paris again. But city centre was 22oC though it was autumn.



Montserrat was rather quiet that day, and we only spent around 1 hr on top. We noticed there was another way of going up; by tram. Either way, they were tough for me because of motion sickness. Due to some miscalculation, we left early and went back to the train station, and ended up waited aimlessly and eating "North-East Wind" for almost 1.5 hrs for the train back to Barcelona.