Advertisement
Published: December 9th 2012
When is a weekend not a weekend? When it's a
super-puente!! It's not often you get a 5-day weekend so we decided to head down to Barcelona to see some friends and discover some different parts of the city. We even found a good price for a flight but in reality, with check-in, waiting for baggage, and waiting for a train from the airport in Barcelona, it wasn't a whole lot quicker that the 4 hours or so we would have spent on a direct train.
Searching for accommodation online revealed that a hotel was only a few Euros more expensive than a hostal so we stayed at the
NH Numancia , just a few minutes walk from the main train station at Sants. It was comfortable enough and we had read that asking for a room without a view of the main road was a very good idea. It was! We had an incredibly peaceful room!!
On the Thursday night we found our way to the
Yelmo Cinema at Vila Olimpica where all the films are in their original language. It was great to watch James Bond in English, albeit with Spanish subtitles. Afterwards we ate a late (for us!)
dinner in a Syrian restaurant haunted by the memories the photos on the walls brought back to us.
The weather forecast for the whole weekend was good. Unbroken sunshine but a little cool was more than we could have wished for at this time of year and they got it spot on. On Friday morning we set out to go up
Tibidabo , a mountain overlooking Barcelona. The metro system took us most of the way but then we expected to find a blue tram to take us to the funicular. It would appear that it isn't operating on a Friday out of season, so we had a bit of a walk. It was luck for us really as we saw some amazing houses, some of which are now schools and businesses. How the other half live! We also stumbled upon the
Cosmo Caixa Science Museum. Although we didn't go in, we were fascinated by the submarine outside. It would appear
there are several submarines around Barcelona so maybe next time we visit we can go in search of them!
Anyway, we eventually made it, slightly out of breath, to the bottom station of the funicular. Our guide book said it cost 3 Euro
for a return ticket and only 2 for one-way. Our plan was to take the easy way up and walk down. The best laid plans and all that...! Things have changed and you now HAVE to buy a return ticket 7.50 Euros. After paying that there was no way we were walking back down!!!!
The views from the top are absolutely stunning, especially on a day with almost infinite visibility. We were mesmerised at every turn - snow capped Pyrenees mountains to the North and the sweeping Catalunian coast to the East. There's even a bizarre funfair/theme park but once again, Friday out of season is a day to see the maintenance men at work rather that enjoy the thrills and spills. It's a shame as the big red aeroplane which hangs you out over the edge of the mountain looked fun. Instead we had to settle for looking around the interior of the
Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus . It was beautiful inside with the most amazing mosaics and carvings on the walls. To our surprise it was possible to pay a little man to take you up in the lift almost to the feet of Jesus Christ himself! There was a wicked
spiral staircase to get that little bit closer. JC was always just out of reach but his disciples were close at hand keeping a watchful eye over the surrounding countryside.
We spent a good few hours up there. In season there would be more to keep you occupied for longer. The downside would no doubt be that it would be much more crowded. All in all a great day out for us. That night we ambled along the Ramblas and had an Indian curry for dinner. Well, what did you expect us to do in Barcelona? Eat tapas???!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.111s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0684s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
