The Reality of Park Gruel

It seems travel is often about checking your expectations against reality. Reality for Park Gruel, er…Park Güell, in Barcelona was pure misery: mobs of screaming school children, tour bus groups sitting hip to hip on the serpentine mosaic tile terrace bench, vendors aggressively hawking cheap goods throughout the park (including those shrill bird noise maker things), musicians strategically placed along all pathways, and graffiti carved into the plant life.

How is this supposed to be fun? I have to ask, is this really what Gaudí had in mind? A dropping-off spot for mass bus tourism and school groups? The park is surely being destroyed by all the people climbing on the stone structures (the guards couldn’t keep up with them, but caught who they could), those carving their names into the cacti, and by the children crowding around to “pet” the famous mosaic salamander. The Mann and I thought a steep admission price would curb some of this.

Perhaps we arrived at the wrong time of day (mid-morning). Maybe in the dead of winter or in the evenings the park ceases to be a circus. But what I imagined the experience to be, and what it really was, was disappointing.

It breaks my heart to see these beautiful sites across Europe being turned into some kind of crass, cheap, crowded horror show. Of course I know that my presence there just adds one more body to the crowd. I don’t expect these beautiful places to be empty. I am trying to distinguish between those travelers who are really there to enrich their lives, respect the site, and learn about it, and those who are dropped off long enough to snap a few photos and buy a caricature of themselves.

It makes me question why I really want to see these places. It changes my travel plans for the future, makes me want to seek out lesser-known places and forget the biggies. I’m admittedly a bit of a sucker for major sites, but it’s because I want to bear witness to them, to experience them, to touch history, to contemplate the complexities and awe of human life. Maybe now my travel life is evolving, however.

Visiting major sites has rarely been a memorable – or fun – experience. In Paris, I ran from the Sacré-Cœur. The metro train couldn’t suck me underground fast enough. In the Louvre, most of the people didn’t seem particularly interested in the art, only snapping photos of the art and moving on, which made it awfully distracting for those of us who really wanted to visit the art. In Prague, I woke up at 5 AM just to have a peaceful sunrise walk across the Charles Bridge and into the city.

Does it really make a difference to my life if I see the Sistine Chapel in person, smashed in, elbow to elbow, with everyone else, faces tilted up, and getting screamed at by the guards to take NO PHOTO because the company who restored the ceiling holds some kind of copyright? I hope I never do THAT again. Or is it better to use the time to get lost in some local neighborhood and end up sitting on the edge of a fountain with a few shriveled nuns and eating a life-changing gelato?

My most meaningful travel experiences have been in places where I got away from the major sites, tossed out any kind of plan, and just wandered into wonderful surprises. I adored(!) Slovenia for its quiet earnestness and un-Disneyfied feel. I had way more fun at Marie Antoinette’s Petit Trianon and hamlet than I did in that monster Versailles. My quiet day in the ruins of Paestum was way more evocative than crowded Pompeii. My funniest Prague moment was discovering the quirky Jára Cimrman museum at the base of the Petrin Tower.

So, at the very least, Park Gruel reminded me once again to check my expectations and to seek out meaningful travel experiences elsewhere. It was certainly an eye-opening experience, and I truly hope the city takes more care to preserve that unique place.

The only open spot of the bench terrace I could photograph