Park Güell - don't leave it out your itinerary.

I'd been living in Barcelona for two months before I finally decided to take a trip to see this world-famous Gaudi creation..

An enthusiastic American girl I was working with at one of the local hostels had convinced me to accompany her on a last-minute day trip to see Park Güell, something I'd been low-key avoiding, as I usually preffered not to do the obvious 'touristy' things, but secretly I had always wanted to see the park for myself, and it was definitely something to tick off the list.  

We took the metro from our usual station to Plaza Catalunya, and then the green line all the way to the Lesseps stop. From there you simply follow the signs leading to Park Guell -

  or so the website said. Getting there was easy enough, only its a much longer walk than we expected and not very clearly marked for the untrained eye - insider tip : if there are two signs that read "Park Guell", pointing in opposite directions, only one of them has clearly been hand-drawn on with a permanent marker, as what I assume is a harmless joke to confuse gullible tourists, follow the more 'official' looking of the two (I had to painstakingly convince my American friend of this). Undetered by this 'tourist trap', we reached our destination with eager anticipation to get a closer look..

As we walked through the gate the two buildings on either side of the entrance, one with the iconic blue-and-white mosaic spire sprouting out the top of it, immediately reminded me of real-life gingerbread houses (the kind you'd make after taking some form of psychedelics perhaps). 

The rest of the grounds were just as enchanting, like something you'd imagine while reading a children's book. The endless stairways and paths lead everywhere and nowhere and at last, to the main lookout point that looks out over the vibrant buildings of Barcelona all the way to the turquise sea,

their colours all mirrored in the kaloidoscope tiles that cover what must be on of the most 'instagrammable' benches the world has to offer..

"We have to do the touristy thing." I said to my friend. 

So we took turns sitting on the bench (you know the one) and taking copious amounts of photos of each other posing, looking 'nonchalantly' over the horizen. 

Sometimes though, you just gotta do the touristy thing.

Photo gallery