Remember when you were a kid and loved to play games in the park like hide and seek or some mangled version of hop scotch? Remember those days when you were a teenager and loved to hang out in the parks for, well, other reasons? Parks — gotta love em! But if you haven’t been to Barcelona, I bet you haven’t seen one like this.

Once a rocky hill with little else in sight, this area that would soon become famous was known as Muntanya Pelada (Bare Mountain). The first plan was to build a residential area for affluent families … and then Antoni Gaudi got hold of it and magic followed. Inspired by the English garden city movement, the original name for this ethereal tract of land was Park Güell. In Catalan the name became “Parc Güell”, and in Spanish, “Parque Güell”. Gaudi’s luscious public park was begun in 1900, officially opened in 1926, and was recognized as an artistic monument in 1969 and a UNESCO world heritage site in 1984. There are spaces both large and small, ornate and calm, the quiet and the raucous. The park is 12 hectares, or roughly 2.5 acres, of magic.

Do you see the yellow bird in the palm tree????

Enjoy!