Mango top
Mango skirt
Zara sandals (similar)
Celine handbag
Celine sunglasses
Linjer rings (c/o)
Mejuri earrings (similar)
Location: Casa Batllo – Barcelona, Spain
We decided to take a detour to Barcelona specifically to visit Casa Batllo. We’ve been to Barcelona twice before, but only ever seen the outside of Antoni Gaudi’s Saint-George-and-the-dragon-inspired architectural masterpiece. That probably raises some questions, considering it’s one of the principle tourist attractions in the city. But it’s also among the most expensive to visit. And when travelling on a tight budget, which we always were (and as most young travellers do), we simply couldn’t justify the steep entry fee. Instead, we visited Parc Guell. There, we could enjoy Gaudi’s work in a beautiful outdoor setting at a price that felt much more manageable. Casa Batllo would, we reasoned, always be there next time.
We thought a lot about next times, in your early years of travelling. In all our travels, really, before the pandemic. Before 2020, we imagined there would always be an opportunity to return to places we’d visited at some undefined future point when we could afford to do more of what we wanted. We’ve learned from that, now. We don’t hesitate anymore. If there’s a place we want to see, and the opportunity to visit arises, we take it. Life is short and the idea that anything is guaranteed is a comforting illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.
It was the availability of early morning tickets for Casa Batllo that convinced we that the time to visit was this trip, this year. The idea came to me unexpectedly and we made the decision quickly. We might be back in Spain again someday, but we might not – our days of decamping to Paris for months at a time are probably gone at this point, and we still have so much of the world left to see in short weeks of annual vacation time. And so we paid what I still consider to be an unjustifiably high entry fee to reserve our tickets, and made our to the Disney World-inspired queues outside the house on Passeig de Gracia before nine in the morning on a sunny September afternoon.
To be clear, it was worth it. Gaudi was an artist, and you must experience his unique approach to architecture to properly appreciate it. I can’t tell you what it’s like, not really – the required words don’t exist in English. Or any other language I know how to speak. You simply have to see it for yourself. But I’ll still try, by explaining that in Casa Batllo, we were inside a family home but also inside the belly of a dragon made of bricks and stones, wood and tiles. There’s no home in the world like it, not even the others that Gaudi designed.
But it was not what we expected. The visitor experience is, in a word, absurd. In another, it’s infuriating. We felt like we were at a theme park, not experiencing a piece of history. Every step we took from the moment we walked into the house was strictly planned, and controlled – the visit path was clearly outlined, and there was no deviating, no going back. Even passing another visitor who moved at a different pace was strictly discouraged.
We caused consternation to an entire team of staff members when we expressed that we didn’t want to carry iPads and headsets with us for the duration of our stay. This interaction was uncomfortable at best – the idea that visitors might not all approach their visit in the exact same way seemed unfathomable to the team, who are clearly unused to guests who don’t follow instructions without question. They did not know what to do with us and, for a moment, seemed poised to tell us we couldn’t stay if we wouldn’t carry iPads. Eventually, we managed to make it understood that we didn’t want the distraction of excess electronic equipment, and that narration to influence our perception of the space we’d come to see didn’t appeal. But it wasn’t an easy feat (and wasted an unnecessary amount of time.)
It pains me to say it, because I never expected I would find myself in a position where I needed to, but I can’t recommend visiting Casa Batllo. I would never go back. The house is stunning. It was a once in a lifetime experience to see the inside, and look out at Barcelona from the rooftop terrace. But the substantial entry fee we paid was only surpassed by the aggravation we experienced while we were there. If you’re used to museums, where we can wander independently and see what you like, expect disappointment and frustration at Casa Batllo.
But the pictures. Just look at them. It was it, just once, to capture these moments.
