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Published: September 7th 2011
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We chose Barcelona because of what Shauna had heard from friends and colleagues in London. I hadn't been to Spain before and I knew it would have at least some flamenco to watch.
After a quick two-hour flight we had arrived in Barcelona. It is amazing how close everything is in Europe. No wonder there are so many Brits that vacation here. Easyjet (UK's version of WestJet) had flights to all kinds of places in Spain that I have never heard of before. Talking about Easyjet, they have some interesting rules. For one, there is only ONE piece of hand luggage that can be carried on. It doesn't matter how much it weighs, but it has to be no bigger than the standard carry-on size. That included things like purses! Those had to be stored in the hand luggage until one got on the flight... Getting on the flight was a bit of a free for all as there was no reserved seating... On top of that, you could enter from the front or rear of the plane... A little bit of a Gong Show.
As greater Barcelona is a bit over 3M people, it seemed like a small
city compared to London. Our boutique hotel was fantastic and the most modern one I had every stayed at. It was minimalistic and reminded me of the Metro Hotel that I stayed at in Seoul a few years ago. The pool was something else! It was on the top floor with great views of the south side of the city. It was always great to cool off after a long day sightseeing or shopping.
We really only had four days here so three of them were planned for sightseeing and one for shopping. Once again we used the sightseeing bus for the first day. We took two routes which proved a bit more than we wanted. It was a bit grinding downtown with all of the traffic. It seemed like we could walk faster sometimes.
The works of Antoni Gaudi were a common theme through our tour. He is a famous Spanish architect that built many famous and unique buildings a century ago. The Sagrada Familia is his most famous work and it still isn't finished yet... and it won't be for another 15 years.
Barcelona is nice mix of new and old, while at the same
time having a pleasant climate with minimal pollution, great public transport, and bike friendly culture. It sure wasn't cheap though, and I can understand why Spain is having the economic problems that it is right now. The country just isn't competitive. We were certainly paying more for food here than London This is the land of cured meats. Legs of ham can be found in nearly every supermarket and some restaurants. Olive oil and wine were a couple of exceptions on the price side. One could get a 5L bottle of olive oil for $15-20. Wine could be found as cheap as juice or milk...
One of the highlights of the trip was a Tango Seduccion. This is a tour group from Argentina that does a nice production of new and old tango. We had great seats and it was fabulous event. I even enjoyed it more than the flamenco show we saw a couple of nights earlier.
Our last day was spent shopping for clothes, which was a disappointment. The malls didn't work for us. I did find one nice area of town for shopping, but it was all a bit too trendy for me. We have
to do some better research in this area on our next trip.
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