Viva Barcelona!

A couple of months back I was in Barcelona but until now I haven't updated my blog so here goes a very retrospective look at our weekend in Barcelona.

One of the great things about being based in the UK is that you can make quick raids to Europe in the space of a weekend. Not that we really needed an excuse, but with a friend of mine called Jane's OE tour of duty about to come to an end and another friend Lucy's birthday coming up it was decided that a long weekend jaunt to Barcelona was in order. Besides Lucy and Jane, rounding out the rest of the squad (and bringing our own unique strengths to the team) was Sean, Caroline, Spam (Tim to his Mum) and myself.

My knowledge of all things Barcelona was pretty much confined to the 1992 Summer Olympics, Ronaldinho the goofy toothed soccer genius and of course that immortal line from the Barry Crump and Scotty Hilux ad: "There was a young lady from Barcelona". Clearly I needed to expand my horizons and get to know Barcelona a little better.

We left London on Friday night and arrived in Barcelona to that very Spanish of things - a siesta! Yep that's right we wandered straight through passport control at the airport while the customs agents caught some zzzs. They did wake up in time to process the stragglers from our plane but by then we were far gone and waiting at the baggage carousel, quietly cursing ourselves for not smuggling in some contraband Kakapo eggs or WMD. We then headed for our inner-city apartment accommodation which turned out to be quite the pad. The next day it was time to explore and luckily for us we had our very own Spanish speaking guide in Caroline, as she had spent some time living in Barcelona a few years back.

Barcelona really is a great city to walk around, with lots of open pedestrian areas and courtyards surrounded by bars. Recently hosting the Olympics can't have hurt either as the streets and alleyways are tidy and quite safe to explore. We headed to La Rambla, which is the main street where all of the buskers and shops etc are, checked out the Barcelona Cathedral and then ended up at the great indoor markets for lunch. By this time the girls were itching to do some meaningful shopping so being the gentlemen that we are, we three lads left them to it and waited patiently in a pub for the afternoon.

The Spanish like to reserve the late afternoon for their siesta and then wake up refreshed in the late evening and ready for a big night. We decided to embrace this local custom and headed out later for some Tapas and the first of quite a few mojitas, capirinhas and caprioskas. Now I did say that I was a peasant and I must confess to no prior knowledge of what any of that stuff actually was. However I can now report for the benefit of my fellow cultural hermits that Tapas is a Spanish style of dining where you share a range of delicious finger food and the mojitas etc are the local cocktail drinks of choice (and rightly so as they tasted great and were strong enough to power a small appliance). Rather disappointingly for a Saturday night the bars all shut at 3.30am so we ended up back at our digs for a few nightcaps and a drunken fry-up (beer and egg omelette anyone?).

The next day understandably started a little slowly but by mid-morning we were back in the game and raring to go. We took the metro to Sitges beach about 30 min south of Barcelona which Caroline reckoned she used to frequent a few years ago, and once we got there it quickly became apparent why as swimwear was clearly optional. Unfortunately as always seems to be the case the wrongly shaped people always seem to embrace the natural state more than the leaner thoroughbreds, so any hopes we guys had of beach perving were dashed by some truly unpalatable sights. Honestly I half expected to see Greenpeace turn up and attempt to float some of them back out to deeper water. After a few blinkered hours on the beach we headed back to base camp for an afternoon siesta before heading out again this time to celebrate Lucy's birthday with dinner and more drinks.

Our last day in Barcelona was spent seeing more of the sights and in particular the unique architecture that Barcelona is famous for. In particular they let this rather strange little man named Gaudi run amuck designing buildings according to his weird tastes, with the Casa Batlo and the more well-known Sagrada Familia cathedral being the most notable (or is that notorious). Ok so maybe I am a cynical peasant at times, but the whole messy no straight lines and wacky materials thing just isn't for me. People go on and on about how magnificent the Sagrada Familia is, but to me it just looked like a termite mound crossed with a cheese grater. Give me nice classical looking buildings with smooth lines like the Parthenon, Pyramids and the Caketin any day.

And so ended my first trip to Barcelona and Spain. I will certainly be heading back if I get the chance as the city is brilliant with lots of great things to do, eat and drink. Don't be discouraged by my disdain for the free and easy beach scene or the nutty creations of Gaudi. Most people I know think his buildings look great. Barcelona really is a vibrant and happening city with something to suit everyone. And my highlight? It would have to be Tapas bars and the delicious little cheese, ham and olive snacks that they serve up. Excelente!

---

---