We caught a morning flight to Barcelona. Thank God for discount airlines. Otherwise we’d be making the trip on train. Wouldn’t be that bad, after all, trains in Europe are supposed to compete against airplanes. But, I was just glad we didn’t have to sit on our butt for longer than an hour.
Arriving at Barcelona’s small yet modern airport, the weather was warm and sunny in Barcelona. We looked for a map and a bus to go downtown. We took the bus to the Plaça de Catalunya, it’s off the centre a bit, but it sits right in front of the Barri Gotic, the old gothic quarter, and La Rambla, the ‘it’ street in Barcelona, I guess.
We quickly entered one of the small streets of the Barri Gotic and looked for our hotel. Despite the small streets, it was still rather easy to find our hotel. In comparison to Venice, the streets of Barri Gotic are highways. After a nice welcome drink of cava, the local sparkling wine, we took our stuff to our room.
It was already about 2pm, and we were hungry, so we went to La Rambla and started to stroll around looking for food. On La Rambla they gave primacy to pedestrians instead of cars. Here the term “sidewalk” lost its meaning, since the pedestrian walkway, if you want to put it that way, is right in the middle of the street. Car lanes are on the left and right of it. Line that pedestrian walkaway with trees, cafes, newsstands, street artists, and perhaps a few pickpockets, and run it from the main square of the city to the sea, and you just have the perfect street.
We went to find a small restaurant and tried the paella. Since it was late already we didn’t bother taking the tourist bus and continued strolling around the Barri Gotic. First we continued down to La Rambla toward the sea. Stopped by the Plaça Reial before continuing down La Rambla. Took pictures by the Museu Maritim. Then we turned left along the Passeig de Colom along the marina. At the end of the Passeig, we took pictures of the Correus, the old post office.
The great thing about Barcelona, for me at least, is the architectures. Great buildings they have here. They’re also quite diverse, I would find out later. From the old gothic style Cathedral, to the modernist creations of Antonin Gaudi, the local genius. I don’t know what to say of his style. They said most of his buildings are art nouveau, yet he gave his name to the term gaudy.
From the old post office, we immersed ourselves in the gothic quarter. Turning round and round, all of a sudden we ran into a small bridge connecting two buildings. The street, the buildings and the bridge were just so middle ages. I wanted so much to take a picture of this small street with the small gothic bridge, but it was getting dark. We decided to come back early tomorrow morning to catch the light. After making another wrong turn, we entered the Cathedral. Now, this was the first time I saw a Cathedral with a garden in the middle of it. Around this area I just couldn’t stop taking pictures. After exiting we went to the front of the Cathedral. Unfortunately, the façade, another middle-ages great view, was being renovated.
From the Cathedral we stopped by a café and tried the local hot chocolate to warm up. Now this local hot chocolate was nothing like those I tried anywhere else. When the waitress gave us the chocolate we almost laughed. It was so thick I didn’t know whether to drink it or to chew on it.
It was dark already and we decided to get a dinner to go. We found a supermarket on La Rambla with a take-out Chinese stand. They really know where to place themselves, smack dab in the middle of the tourist area. And of course, we weren’t the only Asians lining up for General Tso’s chicken. We went back to the hotel and ate in.
We started early the next day and went back to the bridge behind the Cathedral. As it turned out the morning light was superb. The buildings around the bridge filtered and directed to the light right on it. We then went on to the Plaça de Catalunya to catch the tourist bus. Our first stop was the Casa Battlo. One of the Gaudi’s work, this was really an eye-catcher with its colourful façade. Black and white here would undermine its beauty. We caught another bus and passed another one of his creations the Casa Milla. This one was not colourful, more greyish, but all curvy, even the roof top. Then, after a sharp turn, I caught sight of this monstrous construct, the towers of which were reaching far into the sky. I couldn’t really make out what was it supposed to be.
La Sagrada Familia, the holy Family, was supposed to be Barcelona’s next cathedral. But, it was never completed. The work started at the turn of the last century and now some of the roof top was still gaping. Nevertheless it was still something. The towers were gigantic and the statuettes on the façade were really gaudy. They were an exaggeration of human expressions. Fallen cheeks, elongated fingers, pointy eyebrows and eyes looking up to heaven in desperation. We got the point. We bought an entry ticket to the construction site. After a brief look at the ground floor we followed the other tourists up one of the towers in a tight staircase. Don’t do this if you’re claustrophobic. Apart from the great view, the construction of the staircase and the connecting bridges made it worth the climb.
After exiting the Sagrada Familia we grabbed lunch nearby. Then we hopped on the bus to Parc Guell. This was also Gaudi’s creation. Situated on a hill at one end of the city, this gave us a perfect view of the city toward the sea. At the entrance there was a statuette of a lizard covered in broken, colourful ceramics, put together to form colour patterns. Then there was a hall full of pillars. We climbed one of the staircases on one side of the hall and it turned out that the pillars supported a big open space, lined with seats decorated with broken ceramics. We sat down and took pictures of the city. We then proceeded to the garden where skewed tunnels were supported by slender stone columns. We went to the outdoor café for ice cream before we left.
We didn’t have much more time before our evening flight, so we didn’t stop anywhere else. The bus passed the university complex, the footbal
l stadium, and the bull ring. We didn’t have time to check out other sites, like the Olympic stadium or Montjuic. After quickly checking out of our hotel we ran to the bus stop for the bus to the airport. Barely made the flight to Madrid.
tequila shots for the soul 