While in Europe I
tried to visit a few places outside of the UK, as inter-continental travel is
fairly inexpensive in Europe, if you shop around a bit. My friend Bella, and I
decided to book a short trip to Barcelona while we had some time off from our coursework,
and with a little bit of perseverance found very cheap flights there and back
and a nice little hotel to stay in. We booked a morning flight so that we could
make the most of our short stay in Spain, and so we left our campus at 5.30 in
the morning to catch the train to the airport. Before we knew it we had boarded
the plane and were well on our way to the warm sunshine of the Mediterranean.
We had both visited Barcelona
before, and knew exactly what we wanted to do each day of the trip, we just wanted
to explore the city, and submerse ourselves in the parts of the city we hadn’t
seen the first time. Our hotel was in a perfect location to explore, it was a
beautiful 5 minute walk away from the beach, where there were all sorts of
little beach bars and restaurants, and just far enough outside of the city
center to be hidden away from all the typical tourist traps of the city. We had
our own little Rambla around the corner from our hotel, that was filled with
local restaurants and shops that you could tell were very much catered to
locals, not tourists. It was interesting to see this part of Barcelona because,
the first time I had visited I stayed right in the city center, and got sucked
into all of the usual tourist attractions. Seeing local life is the most
genuine way to see a city, because it shows you what the city itself really has
to offer. ANYWAY, back to our trip…
So on the first day, we landed
around 10 AM and had to take an hour train ride from the airport to our hotel.
Which also involved taking the metro and then hiking it up the sidewalk to
where we were staying. OH! And silly me thinking that I could use my Spanish
speaking skills forgot that in Barcelona they speak Catalonian, and so it took
a few for me to realize that I was having trouble understanding some of what
people were saying because THEY WERE SPEAKING A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE! Luckily if
you know Spanish (JUST AN OPINION HERE) then it isn’t super difficult to
understand Catalonian. So after fumbling with our bags in multiple different
directions, (because reading a map is not my forte, and the same goes for Bella
too) down many streets that seemed to all look the same, we finally got our
bearings and found our hotel. SIDENOTE- Barcelona most definitely is lacking
street signs, and the ones they do have are SUPER tiny… maybe they should
rethink those for everyone’s sake… HA. Once we had dropped off our bags we
headed for the beach. It wasn’t quite warm enough for swimming, or sun bathing,
but it was still a balmy 70 degrees or so, so it was nice to just walk around
near the beach after being landlocked in London for four months.
We just kept walking and walking
and walking until we finally ended up at La Rambla… you know the BIG one that
Barcelona is famous for. Before we knew it, it was almost 8 PM and we were at
least an hours walk (LOL if you knew how to read a map) away from our hotel. So
we picked a direction on the map, and tried to take the walk back to our hotel.
UNTIL we ended up on a side street, at night, in the dark. It was then time to
ask for directions… We stopped into a hotel that looked friendly enough and
asked whether we were heading in the right direction. Turns out we were!! BUT
we were still very far away and were advised to take the metro back to our
hotel as “It’s not a very nice walk”- yeah we get your hint, our hotel was kind
of NEXT to an area, not quite ghetto, but maybe not somewhere you want to be
walking around in, in the dark. So after that whole escapade, we ended up
turning around and walking to the metro station to take the metro back to the
hotel. By this time it was almost 10 PM so trying to find a restaurant to eat
dinner was out, and we JUST BARELY made it to the hotel restaurant as it was
about to close, and had a very awkward meal while the wait staff stood there
and watched us eat, so they could hurry up and clear our table.
The next day we got up and set out to explore the city even more, we decided to take the sky tram to get a real view of Barcelona, the harbor and of course, the BEAUTIFUL ocean. We trekked down the beach to the base of the sky tram, and bought our tickets, and got on board. We took the sky tram from the Olympic Port to a local park, and then decided to try and walk back towards the beach. Again- try and walk back is the key phrase, because as you can imagine, it was no easy feat. We ended up walking for quite some time, but at an easy pace, where we could window shop and look at all the shops, bakeries, and cafes that Barcelona has to offer. Before we knew it, we had gotten lost, once again. While we still had enough daylight we followed the map to the best of our (limited) ability and ended up back on the beach. We chose a small beach bar, and sat in the lovely lounges on the beach and basked in the sunshine. We also had some incredible Sangria (my FAVORITE drink EVER) and after that we walked back to our hotel to get ready to go out to dinner, at a more reasonable time than the night before.
Before dinner (or call it us
being indecisive…) we walked up and down the Rambla nearest to our hotel, La
Rambla del Poblenou. Both of us found the area we were staying to have a local
charm about it that central Barcelona was lacking. It was then that we decided to come back the
next day to explore more, but for that night we settled on a little restaurant
that didn’t even have a sign out for people to see whether they were open. They
had a jazz performer who you could tell was local, as all of the restaurant
staff knew the band. It was really great to feel a sense of community, and to
feel like we were part of it.
The next day we went back to a café
on in that same area, and after that ventured into the center to visit the
Sagrada Familia. Both of us share the opinion that it happens to be one of the
most spectacular places to visit…EVER. By the time we got to the ticket
counter, around noon, the next available time slot was 4 PM so we went to a café,
and decided we would have time to explore a bit, get lunch and then still make
it back to be some of the first in line.
So that is just what we did, we set off down a side street and didn’t look back. Eventually we found a restaurant to have some traditional Spanish Paella, because you cannot go to Spain and not have that!! After a charming lunch with a beautiful view of the church amongst the neighborhood buildings, we made our way back to the church, and walked through the church for easily an hour. After our tour of the church, we went further into the center of the city to explore, visiting churches, shops and taking in the arguably distinctive SLOOOOOOOOW European atmosphere. Later that evening we explored the area we were staying in, and returned to the hotel to pack our bags up, as we’d have to leave early the next morning to take the metro to the airport.
So the next morning we left for
the airport, but then could not figure out whether we had bought the right
tickets or not for the Metro, and ended up having to turn around and take the
Metro in the complete opposite direction! The weekend was full of adventures
just like that, because surprise, surprise we were lost again!! Regardless,
spending time in the Spanish sunshine was brilliant! It was good to be back in
Spain and experience something a little different than what London has to offer!
Well Mates, that’s
about it for now, but I do want to thank Bella for putting up with me during
our time in Barcelona, and being such a great travel partner!
Cheers!!
xoxo
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