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Published: March 30th 2008
Day 1 of our two week trip across Spain and Portugal… Leah and I set off from London to rendezvous with James in Barcelona, Spain. We’ve got a jammed packed itinerary, so hold on to your hats and enjoy the ride….
After major delays in Heathrow and in arrivals, Leah & I, and our bags were finally in Barcelona, and were surprised to see James still waiting to meet us at the airport ... some time after mid-night!
Feeling a bit more refreshed, we started the following morning by going straight to the city centre, dropping James off at the pub to watch the rugby, and went sightseeing. We headed to Las Rambles, Barcelona’s main street which is pedestrianised right through the middle with large trees and stalls either side selling everything from flowers to live chicken, ferrets and turtles!!
Leah and I had a look in the Mercat de la Boqueria, a lively market of fresh fruit and vegetables, meats and of course lots of lollies! We saw the ‘Paça de Toros Monumental’ a bull fighting stadium, had a wander through Polisportia Estacio del Nord, a local park, and found the Spanish ‘Arc de Triomf’, a
Mercat de La Boqueria
Lollies! - Leah at the Marketslarge red brick arch with a grand avenue setting, lined with trees and over-sized ornate street lighting, before catching up with James again.
One of the must-do things in Barcelona is to see the amazing Sagrada Familia.
Work on the church started in 1882 by Antoni Gaudi, an eccentric Catalonian architect, but the building is still only half finished and construction still continues. The cathedral is a mish-mash of architectural designs, from the ancient and ornate to the post-modern and wacky.
I don’t think any of us knew what to expect, but I don’t think any of us were expecting it to be like this! Gaudi had based the main pillars on the inside to be like trees, branching out at the top to support the high roof, while fruits, stars and suns capped off some of the external spires - it was kitsch to the extreme.
We went to the Barcelona Cathedral, which was also under considerable restoration, but I couldn’t get in because I had no sleeves on! So we went walking around instead and stumbled upon the best chocolate milk shake in Spain!
We had a look at the Sta. Maria del Mar Church, the
Live Chickens!
and turtles!... strange things for sale along Las Rambles Picasso monument and Monument a Colom, and then to the new marina area on the waterfront.
We caught the cable car - always fun - up to ‘castle de montjuic’, which provided views right across Barcelona: form the waterfront to the foothills. We had a little wander around the outside of the castle and then made our way down to the old Olympic village of 1992 games - where Leah had wanted to go since, well I guess 1992. We found the distinctive tower used for the Olympic torch, which was a lot bigger than I had expected. However, the village itself seemed a bit deserted, with only the odd person walking through and half of the plaza area fenced off for no obvious reason.
We made our way down to the main Plaça d’Espanya via the impressive National Museum of Catalonian Art, and then decided to check out Parc Güell, which had been sculptured by Antoni Gaudi with more of his eccentric building designs, and watched the sunset from the mosaic seating deck over looking, what seems to be gingerbread houses! - very cool!
The sole mission the next day was to get to Valencia to
Las Rambles
In the centre of Barcelona - market by day, restaurant area by night. watch the most important and possibly last race of the America’s cup!! However, the train station was swamped with people, we had trouble working out the right queue to get the tickets and there were rumours around the station that all trains to Valencia were booked out, ekk!
We finally found the right queue, the longest of course, and sent James to scout-out the car-hire place, while Leah and I had a nervous wait … we finally got to the front of the queue to find that there were just 10 seats left, and they were ritzy first-class tickets for an afternoon train - after the race 😞
But wad had to get there, and needless to say it was very nice travelling first class with lunch and endless drinks included… but most importantly we were very excited to find out that the day’s racing had been cancelled due to lake of wind! Yay! So instantly we organised a bit of a reschedule to our holiday so we could stay until Tuesday’s race… bring it on!
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