Hola Barcelona!

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I’ve officially been abroad for 3 months (well, almost 4 months now) and I have settled into London life well. Well, as well as can be expected – I’ve been challenged at times but have enjoyed almost every moment of moving to and settling in a different country to the one I’ve called home all my life. Especially as I’d written this off as being a doable thing years ago, particularly in the past couple of years so to be over here, finally achieving those dreams, feels amazing despite any tough moments that may arise. So, naturally, to mark this momentous occasion I went on my first proper holiday and ventured outside of the UK. Since I’d gotten myself organised and settled and set up in a short amount of time, I treated myself to Barcelona, Spain.

Back on my Contiki tour in 2013, I was lucky enough to get a glimpse into Barcelona however, on the afternoon we arrived it was pouring with rain and we only had a full day there, and because I loved it so much in that short amount of time I had to go back and explore the city properly. I’ve also been heavily in denial about winter approaching and since up until now, I’ve managed to escape cold seasons this year ( I moved away just before the Oz winter started and London was having quite the warm summer), I still wasn’t ready for the cold so picked Barcelona in hopes of warmth. I got my wish as for the majority of the time there, I was cruising around in shirts and shorts.

I had booked 5 nights in Barcelona, leaving London on the 6^th October and coming home on the 11^th October, flying Ryanair and staying at the Hola Hostal in the centre of the city. I had a late night flight so caught the National Express coach to Stansted Airport in the afternoon of the 6th to catch my flight – the coach ended up taking just as long as my flight due to London’s horrendous traffic (won’t lie, probably won’t complain too much about the Bruce bottle-necking most mornings when coming back home) but it was my cheapest option. Upon getting to the airport, showing my passport to the Ryanair counter and getting through security was a breeze since I was only travelling with hand luggage and I had a couple of hours to kill before my flight so I had dinner, looked into the duty free shops and made my way to the gate once it was shown.

Flight went by smoothly, started off reading a book before falling asleep and just over 2 hours later, we had landed in Barcelona. Being 12:30am, I couldn’t be bothered figuring out a cheaper way into the city centre so I just jumped into a taxi to be taken direct to hostel, which wasn’t overly expensive anyway. I’ve only just started getting into the hostel game on this trip - the hostels I stayed in with Contiki don’t count as we never stayed in dorms, more so rooms with atleast 4 of us and we all knew each other from tour as opposed to complete strangers - but I was quite impressed with the Hola Hostal from the beginning. I was staying in a mixed dorm of 24 and after my experience in Brighton, I was expecting the worst. However, it was clean and spotless and each bed had a locker assigned to it, which was opened and locked with the electronic room key and set off an alarm if you tried to get into the wrong one (was accidentally guilty of this upon arriving in room just after 1am and wrongly reading the bed number – sorry fellow roomies!). It was safe to say I was quite impressed with the place…until I had a shower the next morning. The showers were the timed type, where you pressed the button, water spurts out and 30 seconds later, it turns off so you start the cycle again, which doesn’t help when the water starts cold every time. I’ve come across the same thing before, I think we were in Vienna and I hated them then and I still hate them now. But that’s really my only gripe with the hostel so really, we were doing ok at this point.

I started off my day early and went to my first tourist stop as it was merely a 10 minute walk from where I was staying so seemed like a good starting point. It’s also where I took my selfie to let family and friends know where I was since I’d kept it under wraps in the lead up. Sagrada Familia – the construction of this church started in 1882 by architect Antoni Gaudi and to this day, is still being constructed with an estimation completion date of 2026-2028. That in itself is pretty impressive. As is the actual structure itself – it’s massive, the detail is amazing and it’s hard not to be blown away by it. I marvelled at it for a while, taking many photos, seeing if I could notice any differences from when I first saw it 3 years ago. Tickets can be purchased in advance to go inside and although I thought about it, I decided not to - it would be good to go back once it’s completed but since that’s still 10+ years away, we shall just see what happens.

After stopping in a nearby Starbucks for free wifi as I had no maps available nor any good wifi connection (thanks for nothing Starbucks however, thanks to Mum, whom the wifi was letting me talk to through messenger and did some googling for me to let me know the station to get to my next destination). My next destination was Park Guell – another of Gaudi’s designs. Getting to Park Guell from the metro station was a large hike up a hill but the views of the city were well worth the hike. Taking in the views and walking around the park, I eventually made it to the Monumental zone, which you need to book online as there’s a fee to get in. Yep, didn’t really put a whole load of research into Barcelona – was just excited to go there. Photos were taken to the best of my ability just incase I couldn’t make it back up here before leaving. Nonetheless, it was nice to wander through the large park for a while.

From here, I went to La Boqueria – a large food market on La Rambla. I love a good market and this place is definitely up there with the best. It has stall after stall selling fresh produce, sweets, meat, seafood, bread, cheeses and my personal favourite, fresh juices on ice. It also has a range of tapas bars. Whilst wandering around the markets, I drank so much juice – they used to be 1 Euro but they’ve now gone up to 1.50 or 2 for 2 Euro and there are so many flavours to choose from its hard not to want to try them all! As I was getting peckish and had totally forgotten to eat at lunch, I got some market food to keep me going – a cone of cheese and chorizo. After this, I went for a stroll down La Rambla, which is a long street of stores, restaurants, street performers and tourists. After a massive day of walking, I then headed back to my hostel to rest and plan my night ahead.

That night, my hostel was planning a Fideua night so I got on board that as I hadn’t yet planned dinner. Fideua is similar to paella but with noodles instead of rice, which came in handy for me as being a solo traveller, paella was quite limited as most restaurants will only serve to a minimum of 2 people. After dinner, I got ready to go out as the hostel had planned a bar crawl for anyone interested, however due to bad organising and lack of communication, I ended up bailing on it and going to a pub down the road for cheap mojitos. It was a good way to end day 1.

Day 2 started with a sneaky sleep in and after breakfast, I decided to hang around close to the hotel and have a fairly low key day. So I headed up to Passieg de Gracia, a street full of all the luxurious shopping brands that we’d all love to afford, restaurants and another two of Gaudi’s architect work – Casa Batllo and Casa Mila. Lunch was at a little tapas chain restaurant and I probably went overboard with the food because I wanted to try everything (another reason why Barcelona is probably better with 2 or even a group) but when on holiday. It was incredibly delicious though, I had patatas bravas, fried camembert bites and shrimp. After lunch, had a wander around the expensive shops then headed back to hostel to rest before the nights activities.

After a bit of a rest at the hostel, I got ready and caught the metro to Espanya to visit the Centre Comercial Arenes de Barcelona, a former bull fighting ring turned shopping centre. You can take an elevator to the top for 1 euro for some good views of the surrounding area (or if feeling cheap, can go inside the shopping centre and ride the elevator for free). I spent a bit of time there before going for a wander inside the shopping centre. Then I made my way down the road for what turned out to be my absolute highlight of my trip. I was recommended this by my friend Elijah for my Contiki if I had the chance, I didn’t so it was definitely top of my list this time – Font Magica de Montjuic or, Magic Fountain! It was amazing and as mentioned, a real highlight. From 9pm until 11pm, the fountain came to life with music, lights and water acrobatics – different music tracks are played during the 2 hours it’s running for and each cycle lasts for approximately 15 minutes before the fountain stops and then restarts up again. I stayed for almost the two hours, getting photos and videos and just marvelling at it.

The next day after breakfast, I went back over near La Ramblas and walked along Port Vell, a waterfront harbor. Walking back towards La Ramblas is the Columbus Monument and whilst I was taking photos, a heap of police rocked up and started blocking off the streets so stuck around to see what was happening. Turns out it was all part of a conference being held for the International Association of Women Police and they were having a parade, with each country’s women of the force marching in uniform and holding their respective flag. Afterwards, I walked along La Ramblas to the winding alleys in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, where I got ridiculously lost but had fun anyway. During my travels, I saw Barcelona Cathedral, the Tomb of Augustus and Placa Sant Felip Neri. It’s so easy to waste some time in this area because there’s so many alleyways filled with shops and restaurants. For lunch, I found a little restaurant and feasted on mussels boiled in white wine with a glass of sangria, topped off with Catalan cream for dessert. It was incredibly delicious and probably my highlight meal of the trip. I’d had lunch pretty late so I continued wandering around the alleyways of the Gothic Quarter before making my way back to La Ramblas, where I stopped at one of the restaurants for a massive (and massively overpriced – classic tourist trap) sangria and watched the world go by as I drank it. It was a nice way to end the massive day of walking around, just sitting and relaxing with my drink. I also booked a ticket last minute in to the monumental zone in Park Guell so off I went to do that. And as well as get the photos I couldn’t quite manage from afar on my previous visit at the beginning of my trip. Afterwards, it was dark and I was tired so I headed back to the hostel to just chill out.

The following day, I had a sneaky sleep in and a late start to the day. I had decided for lunch I was going to treat myself to El Quim’s in the Boqueria Markets as my last feast here had been absolutely delicious when I’d been introduced to it. However, it always pays to do your research because turns out they’re closed Mondays. So I had my final stock up of juices before leaving to head to Barceloneta beach. The weather wasn’t the best beach weather however I was more than happy to walk along the beach – on the actual sand, no pebbles here. I ended up walking to Port Olympia before heading back to Sagrada Familia because it was close to the hostel and treating myself to an afternoon tea of churros. By this time, my feet were aching, I was tired and I felt I’d had a pretty successful holiday so my night was had relaxing, watching Netflix at the hostel and eating ham and cream cheese on a baguette for dinner before retiring to bed since the next morning was an early one.

I awoke at 6am as I needed to leave my hostel at 7am to ensure I was at the airport atleast 2 hours before my flight. Went to use my room key to unlock my locker to get my things out and it wouldn’t open. I then went out to reception to find a sign on the desk saying it would be unmanned until 8am because of an emergency however the maintenance guy can help but he knows zero English. So as I was now locked out of my room due to the key not working, I went searching for the maintenance guy whilst still in pyjamas and with a couple of gestures whilst explaining my issue, he had me back in my room and my locker unlocked in no time so I was able to get ready and check out. I then caught the train to the airport, had my passport checked and went through security and then bought a little Sangria bottle in duty free as my souvenir. Flight back home was pretty uneventful, had a window seat but was seated on the wrong side of the plane so had a view of the ocean rather than the city. Got back into Stanstead, where I was a little worried about how the whole re-entering the UK on my visa worked – I can come and go as I please in the next two years whilst it’s valid however being my first time out since arriving, I wasn’t sure if I’d be questioned lots or not. Turns out it was pretty painless, asked if I was still employed in the UK and had to give my fingerprints. Bus ride home was pretty quick however walking home from the bus stop, I realised how cold London had suddenly gotten since I’d left – winter was coming.

I had such a good time in Barcelona that it’s made me even more excited at what’s still yet to come in my time here. I can’t wait for more adventures!

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Photos

Park Guell
Monumental Zone

Mercat de la Boqueria
Juices

Park Guell
Monumental Zone