A couple of weeks ago Debbie and I took a five day trip out to Barcelona. I'd never been there before, but Debbie had lived there for a few months a few years back. We were both looking forward to some time away together.
We set off on Sunday afternoon with a short BMI flight from Manchester to Barcelona. From there we took a short train trip to the centre of the city. Our hotel, The Pratik was small but perfectly functional and very clean. There were some vending machines in the hotel lobby, as it didn't have a restaurant area. Of particular note was that some of the sandwiches had a sell by date of November!
Upon arrival we immediately took a walk along Las Ramblas to see some of the main tourist sights. We had some great seafood paella for our first evening meal there along the main stretch. One other thing we discovered in Barcelona was the number of gelato ice cream shops. I think we may have pigged out a little too much on them over the five days there. :-)
One very impressive entrance way!
I got my chance to try out my first bit of Spanish in one on the first night. I knew I managed to fool the man behind the counter after asking for a couple of ice creams and then he replied with a few sentences of Spanish, which totally threw me! I had to confess my English then and he then replied in English, which was much better than my Spanish. I guess he's used to dealing with English tourists.
One of the exotic windows on Casa Batllo. We visited the inside of this building later on.
There were loads of examples of Gaudi architecture throughout the city. I guess it's one of the things that most tourists go to Barcelona to see. Debbie is a particular fan of his work.
Debbie in front of some mural along the way to Park Guell.
On Monday after a fantastic breakfast of croissants and coffee, we went to Park Guell by bus,. Park Guell is the famous Gaudi park that was build for the Barcelona aristocracy. It was full of very strange buildings and sculptures and quite an introduction to Gaudi for me.
A runner doing some stretches along one of the coves in the park. What a fantastic place to be able to exercise in the morning!
The level of detail was amazing to see in each and every Gaudi piece. It was only an introduction of what was to come later on though.
We were fortunate with the weather as it was sunny and quite warm on the first three days and rained a little on the fourth and quite a bit on the day that we were due to leave. Because of this we decided to do the outdoor stuff early on and the interior of the buildings later on in the week.
A panoramic view of the top terraced area from the middle. I felt like I was in a bull-fighting ring at this point!
From the top of the terraced area you could see most of the city to the Mediterranean Sea. To be honest Barcelona doesn't really have a fantastic skyline. Most of the buildings are quite low down, but there are a couple of really striking landmarks in the city skyline. The Sagrada Familia and the Plaza de las Glorias, which looks like a multicoloured London gherkin.
Me sitting on the edge of the terraced area with Barcelona behind. You can see some of the detail of the crazy mosaic paving on the terraced walls.
Some of the strange lines and shapes of the gatehouse to the park.
Around the park there were various Mediterranean plants. Here's a close up of some aloe vera.
Me having some fun with the many water fountains around the park.
A James Bond moment in between the impressive support columns that hold up the terraced area.
From the park we took a gentle walk back to the city centre. Along the way we visited the rather impressive Sagrada Familia church. I wouldn't be understating it if I said that the building is one of the most impressive buildings that I've ever seen. While the Twin Towers were amazingly tall in impressive in their size. The church is just so much more amazing in the level of detail and size.
The outer view of the front of the church.
An example of the fantastic detail on the church walls.
It's still being built but despite this you can walk through and around the church and see most of it. They have obviously thought about keeping as much of it open to the public as possible during the construction period. I guess the church is also famous for having started construction in 1882 and still continuing today.
A zoomed in view of the inner church supports.
Once you step inside the church into the main entrance hall the immense size of the building hits you. It's just such a large open space with such an attention to every detail. Just sitting down on the side seats looking around had me in awe.
The main entrance way to the church. The construction scaffolding makes it look like a rocket launch pad.
A view of the back entrance to the church. Note the detail on the building. It just looks like a mess from a short distance but close up you can see each and every detail.
There were lifts to the top of the towers at the front of the building and also at the back. We only took the lifts at the back towers as the front ones had a considerable queue.
From the top of the tower you had a commanding view of the city. You could walk around the towers looking outwards and examining more of the details. There were also various supports interlinking the four rear towers, which could be traversed. On the lift up to the top of the tower Debbie suddenly realised that she is a little scared of heights. She did cope very well, but wouldn't go too near to the edge on the tower lookouts and struts.
The top of one of the towers.
Along one of the struts there was a fantastic stained glass window.
You can see the big difference between the old dull construction and the new areas though one of the windows in the tower.
While descending the tower lower down there was an amazing long spiral staircase. I managed to get this great shot of the steps going down.
On Monday evening we tried to find a recommended restaurant slightly off the tourist path in my guide book. The restaurant was just off Las Ramblas a few hundred yards along a street. What the guidebook didn't mention was that the street was along the immigrant quarter of the city. Along the way we encountered a small red light district and a few prostitutes plying their trade! Anyhow after a little searching around we finally found the restaurant but unfortunately for some reason it were closed for the day!
In the end we headed back to the main strip and picked a main restaurant. It turned out to be a meat feast BBQ grill house. Your choices on the menu consisted of meat, meat or some more meat. Oh, I did have a tomato and half a small jacket spud with my mixed grill. I think it was a bit of a tourist trap, but it was certainly better than eating along some of the dodgy places we saw around the red light district.
On Tuesday we took a trip down to the local meat and fish market. There were some great displays of fresh meat and fish that really reminded me of the Hong Kong markets. The only big difference being that the seafood in the Hong Kong markets were alive in cascading fish tanks while in Barcelona it was more like the traditional seafood on display on ice.
We had a fantastic seafood tapas lunch at one of the many restaurants around the busy market.
Opposite the market was a small museum of sex, which we had to take a quick tour of. I was very shocked to come across a bloke in the museum who was quite clearly playing with himself while viewing the images in the place!
Nuff said and just don't ask!
We also took a nice walk down to the Marina, which Las Ramblas leads down to. There was a very new entertainment area with some shops, restaurants and large cinema along the port.
In the centre of the gothic quarter of the city is Barcelona's main cathedral. It would be quite impressive on its own but after yesterdays church, it really didn't compare.
An interior view of the atmospheric cathedral.
In the evening we went out for a recommended sushi restaurant in the northern part of the city. It turned out to be a hidden gem of a restaurant with a gruff looking owner who was a spitting image of Mr Miyagi of The Karate Kid movie of he 80's. After the meal we went for what is Barcelona's most authentic gelato ice cream parlour. Needless to say the ice cream that we had was fantastic.
On Wednesday we decided to visit two of Gaudi's most popular buildings, the Casa Mila first, then the Casa Batllo.
The top terrace chimneys of Casa Mila. Gaudi would never consider conventional chimney tops, he had to make them detailed.
The great view from the terrace to the inner courtyard of Casa Mila.
The Casa Mila building is actually a functional apartment and office block so you could only visit the top terrace, top floor and one of the apartments. Inside the top floor was a museum showing the theory of the design of some of Gaudi's buildings, while on the lower floor they had preserved some furniture of Gaudi's time and also some of his own furniture pieces.
More of the detail of the chimneys.
From then we went to Casa Batllo which is Debbie's favourite Gaudi building. From the outside it really did stand out from everything around it. It's a fusion of organic and aquatic shapes and themes, while all the buildings around it are very uniform. To the right of the building is a Barclays bank, I couldn't think of anything any more different sharing the same space.
The rear dinning room of the building with the entrance way to the courtyard.
Again the building was still occupied on most floors, so we could only visit certain areas. I'm not sure whether I would prefer to live in the building or opposite it to see it every day I opened my curtains.
Pulling funny faces between the pillars.
More of the exotic Gaudi chimneys on top of Casa Batllo.
An example of the scales on the roof of the building.
Even on the top floor the servant's quarters were fantastically shaped.
In the centre of the building was a lift and small courtyard and also some great blue tiles. The tiles subtly turned a lighter blue towards the top to give the illusion of light when it was darker outside.
An example of the tiles in the centre courtyard. At the bottom of the window are slits, which could be simply opened to even out the temperature in the building. Old fashioned air con!
On our final evening out in Barcelona we went for tapas and plenty of beers. We were going to go from tapas bar to tapas bar having a little tapas at each one and a beer. In the end we only went to two tapas bars before we had had enough food, we did have plenty of beers though. A fantastic way to spend an evening out eating at a steady pace and drinking beer in between courses. I even sampled veal accidentally on one of the meat tapas dishes. I wouldn't say it was anything special, but would certainly not eat it again.
On the final morning in Barcelona we went back to the meat and seafood market to have a final seafood tapas lunch and to get some photos of the place.
One of the many seafood stalls.
Barcelona is an expensive city to eat out in, I'd say comparable to London in price. The food however is very good and I can thoroughly recommend the place to any seafood lovers like me, unlike London. I really enjoyed the generally friendly atmosphere in the city as well as all the Gaudi architecture.How my back felt after the weeks walking.
I'm not sure why but the four days walking was really causing my lower back to ache. More on this on a later update.
We had quite a funny moment when on the final day we were buying some souvenir books. I said it would be better to pack all the books into our one backpack rather than separate them out. Since I'm quite used to walking around with a heavy backpack, so it didn't bother me. However with my bad back I couldn't walk too long with it, so Debbie had to carry the backpack most of the time.
I don't think she was so impressed with the idea of putting all the books into it, but she did see the funny side of me putting all the books into one bag and the letting her walk with it. Then to make matters worse I wanted to walk back up the hill to Casa Mila to buy a book that I had seen earlier on. :-)
Chilli anyone?
All in all it was a fantastic city and a fantastic few days holiday for me. I think the four full days that we had there were enough to explore the main tourist sites. Any more time there would probably be spent visiting the Olympic stadium or coliseum or the man made beach.
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