Barcelona: Like a jewel in the sun

Two weeks ago I was in the middle of a Semana Santa travel adventure with Kindred Spirit Shannon. Our last-minute travel plans all came together wonderfully and I would say our trip was a huge success—I believe Shannon would agree.

I’m going to break up our trip by location so as not to inundate anyone with too many photos and fun facts at once. Since Shannon was kind enough to upload her photos I can go ahead and do a post, though they will only upload super tiny. My apologies.

Well, we started our adventure in Barcelona in the region of Catalunya in the north of Spain. In Catalunya they speak Catalan, not Castilian (Spanish) so I warned Shannon that we both may have to puzzle out certain things together. Luckily, they are also required to speak Castilian, so while a lot of signs were written in their native tongue, I was able to get us around with my Spanish. Shannon flew in and I took the wonderful AVE train up from my pueblo and we met up at our hostel, Casa Gracia Hostal, around 3pm. (If you are ever hostelling in Barcelona, I highly suggest this establishment; I have stayed in hostels a lot and can attest that it was one of the nicer ones for reasonable rates. They offered a small breakfast, computer/internet access, clean rooms and linens and the staff was very friendly and willing to help us sort out anything we needed from printing plane tickets to airport metro instructions.)

Shannon was of course jet-lagged and I was a bit tired from my early train so we took it very easy our first night. We caught up at a café and then just wandered a bit before having an early tapas dinner and heading to bed. Not many photos from this night, but we did admire the Gaudi architecture that is everywhere and that we couldn’t help but compare a group of trees we found to the Whomping Willow.

Saturday morning we were up and running early for our Barcelona bike tour. I really enjoyed this start to our trip as we got to see a lot of landmarks and parts of the city in an easy, breezy and short amount of time. I also just love bikes. We ended the tour at the beach for a bite of lunch and a drink before biking back to the shop.

{In park Ciutadella}

{La Sagrada Familia}

After the tour we needed to relax for a bit so we headed back to the famous Spanish steps we’d seen earlier on to sit and talk.

(I thought she was taking a picture of the steps, not me!)

These were the steps were Columbus came to speak with Queen Isabel and request funding for his venture to the New World. Actually, he came several times as she rejected him the first few.

After our break we took the metro a ways to get to the famous Gaudi park, Güell. Turns out to get up to the park you must climb a huge, I mean huge hill. Luckily, the city has put elevators directly into the street going up the hill. Yep. Call it laziness, but we were grateful (and you did still have to climb occasional parts).

Once at the top, we had great city views.

Do any of you watch America’s Next Top Model? It’s ok, you don’t have to admit it, but if you do—or did—some of these shots might look familiar. One of the season finale fashion shows took place in this park! So, of course Shannon and I had to strut our stuff and pose where the top model girls did.

Besides its top model appeal, this park is just seriously fun and gorgeous with bright colors, great look-outs and that signature Gaudi style. Honestly, at one point Shannon & I felt like we were standing in Disney World.

That night we went over to another part of town (Placa Espanya) to check out the fountain shows at the Palace that we had heard about. It was pretty cool to watch and we particularly appreciated the part set to Queen’s “Barcelona.”

For dinner we headed to Placa Real for dinner at Les Quince Nits as recommended by the delightful Aiketa. We really owe you, Aiketa, because we loved it! As in, we ended up going twice in our four days in Barcelona because we knew we loved it and because Shannon had this amazing duck confit the first time and after tasting her dish I instantly regretted my own choice—you can guess what I ordered the second time.

Sunday we deemed our market day. We had a huge list of market addresses, what they featured and other basic information. Unfortunately, with all the planning I tried to do I failed to notice that most markets are, of course, closed on Sundays. Katefail. Oh well, a few were open and both Shannon and I scored a couple of souvenirs (a fascinator for her a la Kate Middleton; a watch necklace for me). There was also a grass-roots type market going on from the stretch leading from the Arch down into park Ciutadella and that ended up having plenty to occupy our time. I think we were there for hours, both finding great gifts for friends/family and for ourselves. Their was also a food market accompanying it which offered world-wide fare. Literally. I think we ended up eating from a Tibetan tent.

(Unfortunately there are no pictures online of this. Oh well, we enjoyed it and that’s good enough.)

After exhausting ourselves at the market, we headed deeper into the park to find a patch of grass and nap/write/read for a bit. The park was filled with families and friends doing the same and it was really pleasant.

For dinner we went to a little pizza place on a side street (also recommended by dear Aiketa) and that was just what we needed. Tasty pizza, really low-key, practically no tourists and dirt cheap—right off Las Ramblas!

On Monday we took the train out to Montserrat, a beautiful mountain top escape that features a monastery and basilica. It was really truly gorgeous and we both appreciated being out and away from the city for a bit.

On Tuesday we headed out to find some of those markets we’d missed on Sunday, starting with the famous La Boqueria, right on Las Ramblas. This is a typical big-city Spanish market, a permanent covered fixture featuring booths with fresh seafood, meat (as in legs and heads and such), fresh fruits, cheeses, candy, little tapas stands, etc. I love these places as they really stimulate your senses with the noise and colors and smells. I wanted to eat everything, but we settled for some fresh juice. Shannon: Kiwi; Me: Blackberry Coconut.

We were pretty warn out from our non-stop four days so we ended up settling at a café for a few hours while we waited to head to the airport for our flight to our next stop: Bilbao!

Barcelona was great to us and we both loved it…but we loved Bilbao more! Come back to hear about our peaceful stay in this luscious green northern city.

*I had the worst time trying to put this post together. Lately blogspot is messing with my formats like crazy and any time I make the slightest change (like add a comma or a space), suddenly there are like ten spaces between each paragraph or picture! I swear I almost chucked my computer across the room. Anyway, sorry that the format is not pleasing to look at but after fixing the spaces ten times (literally) and having them revert, I gave up. GR.

**Title from the song "Barcelona"