Barthelona!

the view from our room

We arrived into Girona (Ryanair's version of Barcelona), passed quickly through passport control and customs- and jumped onto the first bus heading to Barcelona. We dozed off listening to Nick's ipod and before we knew it we were in Barca... We had booked a hotel in the olympic site, or so we thought! Sadly it turned out to be a completely different hotel with the same name. It was lastminute.com's fault, they had put a link to buy a room at this other hotel on a page specifically advertising the hotel on the olympic site. Once you went onto their page there were no other pictures or anything to show you it was a different hotel, you just selected double or twin then paid... After we got over the annoyance and our frustration at a total lack of customer service from lastminute.com we just sat back and enjoyed our sea side hotel with lovely views and the quiet viallge atmosphere of area. We had Spanexican for dinner :0

A short 15 min train trip brought us to the centre of Barcelona and we headed straight for the Arc de Triomf as we were both curious to see how it compared to the Parisian version. It was nice but not as impressive. We wandered up to the L'Eixample area to get some brunch and take in some of Gaudi's most popular buildings- undulating La Pedrera and sparkly Casa Batllo, along with some other funky Modernism gems.

I went off then to catch up with some people from home while Nick explored Barcelona's many design shops, walked over to the Sagrada Familia, waited in line for while then found out it was closed. Not to be defeated he walked over to Barcelona's own gerkin building- the better, newer, more fabulous Torre Agbar, hoping to see the colourful building be 'switched on' for the evening. But after waiting in the failing light for sometime he gave up and headed back over to Las Ramblas and met up with me under the shadow of Christopher Columbus.

Nowhere in Barcelona is as lively as Las Ramblas, and it is at its most convivial in the early evening when tourists, travellers and even the odd local wander the wide boulevard and up the lanes of Barri Gotic browsing boutiques or looking for the perfect place to have some tapas or a cool sangria. We happily joined in

6.12.09

This morning we headed for another one of Barcelona's architectual tidbits the Food Markets – designed by Enrique Miralles From there we walked to Sagrada Familia for a second bite of the cherry. This time we languished in the park opposite enjoying the outside views rather than battling the crowds to get inside.

Eventually we retreated into the metro and high up to the hillside district of Gracia to visit Parc Guell, Guadi's playground of colorful mosaics, paths and plazas. The house Gaudi lived in (after it failed to sell) and several other gingerbread Modernisme buildings kept us more than entertained and we could've stayed until sundown but we had more to see! We strolled back down the hill, through the district of Gracia enojying the beautiful apartment buildings and following the Passeig de Gracia from its beginning, right along until it becomes the wide boulevard that eventually led us down to Placa de Catalunya. We arrived there as the sun set and the sky was filled with pink smudges and the warm colour was reflected onto the striking department store Corte Ingles.

We didn't linger here long, we continued our amble down through Barri Gotic, skirted along La Ribera and down to slightly frayed-around-the-edges La Barceloneta to seek out some of that famous seafood Paella. After a delicious dinner we headed to the metro again for take two of that colouful cucumber Torre Agbar. Looking like true tourists we dashed across highways to take blurry photos of a pretty building. It was worth it though.

7.12.09

This morning our first stop was the Olympic site and Montjuic. We walked up from Placa Espanya and the first place we stopped was The Barcelona Pavillion by Mies Van de Rohe, not suprisingly we lingered a while. I was really surprised by how much I liked it, everything about it was pleasing to the eye: the marble, stone, water, glass and steel; and how these interact, reflect and repeat. After some time we wandered up the hill through the gardens and towards the main Olympic site. We saw Santiago Calatrava's tower, tennis and swimming complexes, the main stadium, and coming down the other side of the hill we saw the famous diving pools with spectacular views over Barcelona (think Kylie Minogue's 'Slow' filmclip).

Skipping the furnicular we ambled down a somewhat forgotten path (there were homeless people living in tents) down into the Port Vell area. After a few fairly bland streets we came out where Las Ramblas meets the sea, walked over Rambla de Mar to a big (floating pier type) shopping centre/ restaurant area with lots of overpriced tapas bars. After a peruse, we wandered back up Las Ramblas (picking up some souvenirs on the way) and through Barri Gotic to a little Cafe and had a very late lunch. After a bit more of a wander around we walked up to the bus station to begin our journey home to London.