…At least every one that has a funicular, says I, an elderly person with a fear of heights and a trick hip.

On Easter we finally made it to Tibidabo! I was a little apprehensive about going on such a holy day because the basilica there is active. Obviously, we didn’t plan to tour it, but I wasn’t sure if it would be even be OK to be hanging around. However the place was packed, and not with worshippers. The basilica is on the small side and more people were climbing around on the outside, taking in the views, than would have fit inside. Even larger crowds were flocking the rides and taking pictures of each other on the overlook.

The star you see on the top of the scary ride is visible from many parts of Barcelona and I have long yearned to see it up close. When you look at it from the city, you also see the basilica behind it, as well as some of the rides.

Barcelona is well aware of its touristic draw and provides ample photo opportunities.

The biggest surprise was the size of Parc Natural de la Serra de Collserola, which surrounds it. The portion of the park on the Barcelona side is possibly the largest green area in the city, but it is a tiny portion of the total, which covers 8000 hectares, or 30 square miles. So looking toward the Mediterranean from the overlook you see the city, and looking away from the city behind the basilica you see Nature.

To get there, we took 45-minute bus ride, a 10-minute bus ride, and a 4-minute funicular ride. We rode in the front section of the funicular going up so I could keep an eye on that critical spooling cable, and again going down because I wanted to see what that would look like, although if the unspooling cable broke we would be first to go. The funicular isn’t too scary for me, just a mild thrill, plus it was a really short ride.

Near the lower funicular station is a collection of restaurants ideally placed to capture the attention of tired and hungry people coming back from Tibidabo, which at the moment has no restaurants, although one is under construction. In America, I would expect to find fast food at such locations, but all three of these were high-end bars with a nice selection of tapas and incredible views. We were especially glad that we took time to eat because…

…on the way back we had a hilarious newbie experience when we made two wrong assumptions. The first was that a bus going in one direction will return on the same path in reverse. The second was that when you’re on a bus taking you in the wrong direction, you should get off. Apparently, some buses go in a circle, so once we got on the “upper” bus going in the wrong direction, we should’ve stayed on and gone back to the funicular station and walked to the “lower” bus. To add to the estúpido part, our navigator had told us to walk to the lower bus, but we saw the upper bus appear and thought, Why walk? We’ll just take that one back. When we randomly exited that bus, it was in an area not very close to any routes leading toward our apartment. We ended up taking a circuitous path involving two more buses and a walk, together taking a good two hours. At least we saw some interesting new neighborhoods before we got home.