Barri Gotic and La Rambla, Barcelona

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We had an early start this morning as Bernie wanted to go back to La Sagrada Familia (yes, again!) to photograph the Nativity Façade in the early morning light before the tour busses arrived. Yet another tip that he picked up in our guide to Barcelona! We were there and back to the hotel within an hour. Even at this early hour of the day there are trains running about every three to four minutes so it is really quick and easy to travel around the city.

After showering we packed our overnight bag, settled our bill and arranged storage for our bag and the tripod until later in the day. We then headed back to the station at Passeig de Gracia so that we could have some breakfast as we headed down to the Placa de Catalunya to take our walking tour of the Barri Gotic. We arrived, with our pre-purchased voucher, at about 9.45am. Other less organized tourists were still arriving at 10.05am to buy their tickets for the 10.00am tour! Of course this meant that we left about 20 minutes late for our tour which was bit annoying! One couple must have literally just arrived in Barcelona as he had to tow their case around with him for the whole tour!!!!

The tour of the oldest parts of the city took in the Roman walls, the Catedral (currently being restored so we could not see much of the outside), the archdeacon’s residence and the Palau Episcopal. From the cathedral precinct we walked through the Placa de Sant Felip Neri. As I type this up I notice with some disappointment that we actually missed the footwear museum that is located in the square!!! Our guide, Artur, had some difficulty commentating this section of the tour as there were dozens of children playing in the square making rather a lot of noise!

From the square we actually walked back around to the side entrance of the Catedral to visit the cloisters. The guide told us that there are thirteen white geese that are the traditional guardians of the cloisters. I thought me meant white geese carved out of marble or similar, but they are real, live, white geese!!

Our next stop was the Temple d’August which is another relic of the city’s Roman past and consists of four imposing columns that have been preserved in the basement of the building housing the Catalan Hiker’s Association!


The balance of our tour consisted of the garden of the former royal palace of the Counts of Barcelona, the Palau del Lloctinent, the Placa del Rei which is the historic centre of the Gothic Quarter, the former residence of the counts and kings of the Catalonia and Aragon and the Capella de Santa Agata which was built by King Jaume II. Our tour concluded in the Placa de Sant Jaume which was just up the street from our hotel.

By this stage it was lunchtime so we thought that we would buy sandwiches from a place on the square that looked like the Spanish equivalent of Subway. That was until we saw their prices! It was going to cost us nearly €8 for a sandwich/roll. We decided that was ridiculous without even checking what it was going to cost us for something to drink.

We nipped around the corner and walked a few metres down a side street and found a supermarket where we bought two 500ml bottles of water for just €1.50. Across the street we bought two ham and cheese filled pastries from a bakery for about €3.50!! It is much cheaper to eat like a local and the ham and cheese things were delicious!

After a bit more train travel we were at the Palau de la Musica Catalana. This venue was on the list for yesterday - until we discovered sometime after 3.30pm that it is only open from 10am - 3.30pm daily!! So, we were there well before 3.30pm today, but it was closed due to some private function being held there today! The security guard told us we could come back tomorrow. Yeah right! I felt like telling him that it might be open tomorrow, but we won’t still be in Barcelona come tomorrow, but there’s no point! It will just have to go on the list of things not done and places not seen like not being able to climb to the rim of Mount Vesuvius because of the weather! Sometimes you just can’t plan for every little thing that may prevent you from doing what you planned to do!!! Ah well, when we are nearly 70 and we come back to see the finished Sagrada Familia we can also return to the Palau de la Musica????!

We walked across to La Rambla and strolled down towards the port. La Rambla is very touristy with lots of living statues to entertain the masses. Some of them are very elaborate, some are quite funny and others don’t really seem to be trying?! La Rambla is also the place to go to buy birds and flowers or to have a caricature drawn with lots of street artists and calligraphers about. We stopped in at the Mercat de la Boqueria about half way along La Rambla to take in the sights and sounds of Barcelona’s busiest food market.

At the end of La Rambla we took the elevator up to the viewing platform in the statue of Christopher Columbus. It is a very small viewing platform nearly 80 metres above street level. Although it is enclosed it is definitely not something I would recommend for anyone who suffers from a fear of heights. I am not prone to vertigo, but even I felt a little wonky on this very small viewing platform!

From the Mirado de Colom we walked across to Port Vell and then retraced our steps back up La Rambla. When we reached McDonalds and KFC we headed back to Hotel Gotico to collect our bag from their left luggage room. All loaded up again we found our way back to the RENFE station at Passeig de Gracia where we purchased tickets back to Tarragona. Fortunately we had seats for our return journey and I was asleep before we reached Sants-Estacio - which is almost like falling asleep between Museum and Parliament!!! Even Bernie felt drowsy so he set the alarm on his phone to make sure that we did not sleep through the stop at Tarragona!

We managed to wake up enough to get ourselves off the train in Tarragona where we had to hike up the hill again to the bus station. I did mention the idea of splurging on a taxi to the bus station (or maybe even all the way to La Pineda), but Bernie decided that we could walk and bus it!!!! He carried all the bags and I hobbled along behind as my feet and back were troubling me after almost two full days on my feet. I’m sure the pedometer reading would be impressive … if I was wearing one!!!

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