Last Updated on 19 April 2023 by gerry
The Catalans take their Easter Monday holiday quite seriously and many shops and businesses are shut today. It’s a day for family gatherings and eating the traditional mona cakes and chocolate. We have a family gathering of our own planned as we have bought tickets for Park Güell in Barcelona to spend the day with my cousin and her fiancé, who are in the city for a week just now.
As we head for the train at about 9.30am, Arenys de Mar is quiet as a mouse. Trains are a bit few and far between today, but we make it to Plaça Catalunya for 10.45am and meet our companions for the day. We buy a T-Familiar ticket which should be perfect for us for today. It gives us 8 journeys for €10 and can be shared amoung a group of people. We line up at the metro turnstile to file through one by one as the ticket is processed four times and we’re on our way. Our desination is Lesseps station and it’s an easy 15min walk to the Park from there. Our Park Güell tickets are timed for 12pm and we have 10mins to catch our breath when we reach the ticket office gate at the top of the fabulously named Avinguda del Santuari de Sant Josep de la Muntanya.
The Park is a fabulous place to spend time with friends and family. Despite the visitor numbers being at capacity, the architecture and the horticultural elements create an overwhelming sense of calm and relaxation. You find yourself strolling through the grounds of the extensive park without really needing too much thought about which route to take and by the end you realise you have covered a significant distance and climbed up and down the ascending and descending paths.
After a snack at a roadside cafe we attempt to use our T-familiar ticket for the return metro journey from the Fontana station, only for the ticket to get a bit mangled in the machine and become unusable after just one further use. On Easter Monday there are no staff at this station to help and we just have to buy another ticket to get us through. It’s not the end of the world. We’ll have 5 journeys left on this ticket should we need them in Barcelona on a future occasion.
It turns out that my cousin’s place in Barcelona is in the same street and almost exactly opposite where my niece lives – what a coincidence! From Plaça Catalunya we walk to their street and retire for a few drinks at a local bar. My niece arrives just in time to join us for our last drink and a lovely bonus to what has been a fabulous day in Barcelona.