Barcelona
Trip Start
Apr 04, 2008
1
35
108
Trip End
Jul 03, 2009
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Barcelona,
Catalonia,
Spain and Canary Islands
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Barcelona is a great city, our hotel was in the Gothic Quarter and in a really central location so we were able to walk through a good part of it. Many of the buildings date from medieval times and are world heritage listed although the grafiti problem was distressing and gave it a little bit of a seedy atmosphere. Pete and I really enjoy wandering through the streets and admiring the architecture although it doesnt ring the boys bells. Have to bribe them in other ways...
We did the Hop on Hop Off bus which gave us a good overview and took us past some of Gaudi's buildings. Gaudi is a famous Spanish architect who designed buildings with curved walls and tiled fronts, they look like something out of Alice in Wonderland. Amazing. One of his creations is the Unfinished Cathedral which started in 1882 and should be finished by 2026, so they say!
Barcelona is right on the coast and so is a mixture of beach and city. The beachfront is really nice with boardwalks going for kilometres, lots of modern art sculptures, several marina complexes and lots of great eating places. In fact Barcelona is a strange mix of the old and the new, with buildings 7 or more hundred years old with a modern/abstract sculpture out the front, we guessed alot of it had been done for the Olympics in 92.
The famous Las Ramblas is a wide road with a pathway about 20metres wide running down the middle with street stalls and entertainers lining the 1.2km route. It runs from the City down to Port Vell and is an adventure in itself.
We felt like there were about 100,000 other people also walking with us, we have never seen so many people crowed into a city, 35 degree heat and masses of people make for an interesting walk. We had been warned to watch out for pickpockets in the city and particularly here, still it didnt put us off enjoying the atmosphere.
The street stalls are in sections with things like flowers, then jewellery, then toys, then exotic pets which we barely managed to walk away from. They seem to have way cooler pets over here than at home. Street entertainers line the route,some are really clever others just so so and you give them a tip to have your photo taken with them.
The other good thing about Barcelona is they have an English speaking cinema so we managed to get our movie fix and see 4 movies while we were there, Batman, Hancock, Get Smart and Mumma Mia.....
The flight back to Palma was a little stressful with our thoughts mainly on the poor relatives of those killed in the crash 2 days earlier. Glad it was a quick flight....20 minutes.
