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Published: August 19th 2017
Hello my fellow travellers!
With my friend Andreas, called Ante, in tow I arrived in Barcelona just past midnight, due to a delay in the flight. Thankfully Barcelona is much of a night town so our host Michal was up and about and didn't have to wait up for us to arrive. We will be staying with him for two nights here in Barcelona before we continue on to Andorra la Vella in the Pyrenees. We made our way out to Michal who greeted us with water and lots of good advice on what to see and do while we're here.
After chatting for a while we all went to bed to gain some strength for what we expected to be a tough first day, traversing the hilly landscape of Barcelona under the blistering sun. At least for once I have been wise enough to pack protection against the sun, I'm finally learning!
When we woke up Michal provided us with a key and informed us that another surfer would also be arriving later during the day. I slathered myself in sunblock and then we set out to see what Barcelona had to offer. Unfortunately Andreas forgot to
apply his sunblock and even though I offered early on that we should return for it he declined and he paid for it by being burned to a crisp in the neck during the day.
Our first target was
Plaça d'Espanya where we jumped off the bus during the night, it's a gorgeous roundabout with a beautiful fountain and statues in it's middle and the
Arenas de Barcelona, a former bullring that has been turned into a shopping mall, and the
Torres Venecianes standing by it's sides. The whole scene is very striking despite the heavy traffic, especially when you take the nearby hill with
Palau Nacional, a gorgeous art museum, crowning it, into consideration.
Since both me and Ante was taken by the beauty of the
Palau Nacional we decided to go up the mountain to take a closer look at it. On our ascent we bumped into a nice Moroccan guy travelling through Spain for two weeks. We took turns helping each other taking photographs as we went up level by level to the top. Once we got to the top me and Ante decided to rest for a while and eat some breakfast at the
cafe outside the entrance to the art museum. There were a lot of people here, posing in every imaginable position in every conceivable place, there was pretty much a constant line to get some decent photos here.
Once we were rested we continued up the hill with our sights set on
Castell de Montjuïc, we decided to pass on the cable car up there and relied on our own feet to traverse the hillside. It was a pretty tough climb under the blistering sun with no shade in sight. I'm pretty sure that this is the section where Ante picked up his nasty burn.
We decided to sit down and rest outside the castle for a while and we debated for a moment about if we were to go inside or not, I thought the price of five euro seemed reasonable for the sight but Ante wasn't to interested and he didn't really want to wait in line so we just kept sitting there in the shade until I decided to go in regardless of what he did but once I got in line he followed suit and I think he ended up enjoying the experience.
The
girl in the registry was lovely and when she asked if I was under 29 I said I wished and she laughed and said that a Spanish guy would have said yes so she asked where I was from and we chatted briefly. As we were crossing the bridge into the castle the guard kept shouting at some kids going over a wall to the garden below. Next to him stood another girl, checking the tickets upon entry. She was singing a soft tune and I told her she was singing well and got a nice and sunny smile in return.
As we came inside the outer fortifications we took a stroll around them, enjoying the view and checking out the various artillery pieces that remains here from different time periods. We also took the opportunity to refill some water at a public drinking fountain, unfortunately it tastes like chlorine but it beets the thirst for the most part. After we had walked around half of the outer fortifications we went into the inner fortifications and went into a couple of small exhibitions in there and went up on top of the inner walls and took a look at
the watch tower that stands there. It's the oldest part of the castle and I think it first started out as a lighthouse and then was incorporated into the castle as construction kept going. It saw it's first battle in 1641, one year after it's completion, during the Battle of Montjuic where Catalan rebels defeated a Spanish army during the
Guerra dels Segadors, a Catalonia revolt.
The view from up there is spectacular and the castle itself is very well kept, I'll easily recommend you all to take the hike up here, it's more than worth both the sweat and the entry price.
We talked for a bit up there about if we should take a bus down since we were both pretty tired but we decided to walk anyway, figuring that the way down would be easier. Also Ante had read about a festival that was rocked by a fire yesterday and he wanted to go and check that festival out and we thought that some music we heard might be from that but ti turned to to be some kind of luncheon amusement park.
It did indeed go easier going down than up though and
we made it down into the city and went into a restaurant to eat some dinner before heading for the centre. Ante decided to try the paella while I went for the calamari with french fries and a beer. It was absolutely delicious and the owner was a nice chap.
As we left the restaurant to go to
Santa Maria del Pi we found ourselves smack in the middle of a big protest. We couldn't quite figure out exactly what the protest was about as there were so many different types of flags waving around, mainly a lot that seemed to be of Islamic origins but some that we couldn't recognise at all. Considering the different types of protests that have been held here before and the general climate here we guessed that it's either a protest about refugees, for or against, a protest for or against independence since they are voting on that issue soon or an anti-tourism protest because there have been a lot of anti-tourism sentiment in Spain lately. We even saw the words "fuck tourism" written on the walls in several places.
Once we reached the
Santa Maria del Pi they were closing up
and preparing for an evening concert, it seemed to be ticket bound to enter so we kept going since neither of us was very interested in that concert.
Further down the road we came upon
Muralla Romana, the old Roman wall and Roman towers of Barcelona constructed between the 3rd and 4th century. To be honest I wasn't as impressed by them as I thought I would be. Probably because they seem to be built together with other things and don't really resemble a defensive structure any more.
Right behind
Muralla Romana are the
Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia, a large and imposing cathedral, unfortunately it wasn't open to visitors, only to worshippers. By the side of the cathedral we at least caught a lovely live performance of opera singers which was really atmospheric in that setting.
Just next to it is the remains of
Temple d'August, there isn't much left of it, only four pillars built into another house so it's not really much to look at.
Close to here we once again came upon the protest, gathered outside
Ajuntament de Barcelona, the city hall. We decided to take one of the
smaller streets away from there to avoid the crowd just in case. This took us down the path to the beautiful chapel,
Capella de Santa Àgata, with the statue of Ramon Berenguer III in front of it. We sat down close to here to rest for a while and watch a couple of live performers doing their arts in a small square between a few restaurants.
We decided to leave as one of the performers, who was pretty bad, started asking for money in a somewhat uncomfortable manner and we headed for the
Parc de la Ciutadella, citadel park, and
Arc de Triomf, the arc of triumph. Both the park and the arc are really lovely and certainly worth a visit and inside the park are also several other beautiful buildings such as
Castell dels Tres Dragons and
Parroquia Castrense de la Ciutadella. Since Ante was sunburned and was starting to get a tad worn out and asking for after sun, understandably so, I told him to go into a pharmacy some twenty metres away and get what he needed while I stayed and took some more photographs of the
Arc de Triomf since it had so many lovely
details.
I figured Ante shouldn't have any problems simply purchasing the after sun on his own. I noticed him in the corner of my eye waiting for me after the first of two crossing points but decided to wait him out, photographing and seeing if he was at least independent enough to do this on his own. He passed the second crossing point and waited right outside the pharmacy, I kept photographing for a few more minutes hoping he'd go inside and take care of business but to no avail.
Finally I gave up and went to him, knowing he wasn't done and asked if he got what he needed and he told me he hadn't gone inside yet and I asked him why but he didn't reply so I just went inside and asked the cashier for after sun, she went to the shelf at picked it up and I pointed at Ante so she gave it to him, it took five seconds. As much as I love Ante I really wish that he would become more independent now. He's been with me on two trips like this before, through nine different countries. He shouldn't have to
rely on me for something as simple as this any more.
Oh well, at least we had the after sun so we made our way to the last place on our itinerary for the day,
Sagrada Familia, by now Ante was pretty beat and didn't care about anything any more and honestly I was pretty damn tired as well so I just did a quick photo shoot outside which was unfortunately a bit spoiled by all the construction works being carried out. We went down into the nearby subway and bought a 10 ticket card (I figured we'd need to go by subway the following days for Ante's sake) and returned to Michal with a quick stop at a KFC on the way to pick up an evening snack.
Once we were back at Michal's home we met up with another couch surfer, Radek, a really nice and social guy from Australia, and we chatted until Michal came back and then all four of us spent the evening playing a game from Michal's extensive collection of board games. The game was called Ninjago and it was a game about Ninjas and political power in ancient Japan. It was
a lot of fun and it was a tight game where we didn't know how it would turn out until we tallied up the points at the end.
It was a good day even if the walking and the sun took it's toll on us, Barcelona is a really beautiful city and both me and Ante have been enjoying our day here but we'll take a couple of days break from Barcelona to go into the Pyrenees, the majestic mountains close to us where we will go up into the small nation of Andorra. I expect that our day tomorrow will be a lot more relaxed than what today was.
Tomorrow me and Ante will go to Andorra la Vella and until then I wish you all peace and happy travels!
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Ake Och Emma
Ake Dahllof and Emma Holmbro
Saw a bullfight in 2001
I visited Barcelona in 2001 and I saw a bullfight then. I guess it might even have beeb in that very arena. /Ake