I didn’t do anything on Tuesday except pack and head to the airport, total trip time on UBahn & bus took about 45min, got there in ample time, was masses of queues for checkin/drop bag. I was glad I got 1 person as saw this other dude being anal with people about luggage weight, my bag was 20.8kg. Got through security easily, no stupid Pepsi incident this time round. Berlin Tegel is one really shitty airport that’s one thing I can say, seems pretty random and a bit of a mess and then there isn’t much food/shop wise either when you get through security (maybe I was just in the small terminal or something). Just sat chatting to people on my phone with it connected to my laptop to charge it up.
Flight was OK, wasn’t totally full, had people next to me. I picked the correct side of the plane as I got to see the coastline of Spain as we approached and got a nice view of Barcelona from the sky, score.
Once we landed I made my way to the baggage claim which was a bit of a walk then one there had to wait about 45min for any of the bags from our flight to come out, was getting lekker pissed off. They only give you 15min free wifi/24hrs at the airport too so that sucked a bit, was just enough to tell people I was there safely. Then found my way to the Aerobus which goes between various town venues and the airport, bought a return ticket for E10.20 vs the E5.90 single as I’ll need it again on Friday. Was quick and painless. Found my way to my accommodation OK, was right near MACBA: Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona
It was a really nice place, very typical of how people live here, very tall buildings, thankfully the host gave me a hand with my case. He gave me all relevant info for the place and I met some of their cats. Got onto wifi and then headed out for a bit of a walk. Not too far for today though.
Street I was staying in – by day
Street I was staying in – by night
WOW Barcelona is REALLY REALLY BUSY !!! Way more people than any other city I’ve experienced, it is apparently peak peak season. I wandered to Plaça de Catalunya and looked there, wasn’t much to see, popped into the Apple Store cause I could.
Went back there the next morning – this is how they open the store each day, pretty cool.
Looked around La Rambla a bit, dunno why but I expected it to be a little different to what it was. I expected it to be more restaurants and things vs shops and curios type things, maybe I didn’t walk far enough down or something. A bit further down it does get a bit more restuaranty.
La Rambla, doesn’t look that busy in the pic, be mark my words it is crazy
I asked Mark (Airbnb host) for a recommendation for a dinner spot and one he said is super good and popular amongst people who live here is a trendy bar/burger place called Betty Ford’s. Went past there but the kitchen only opened at 9pm so went back later. Had a really great burger and a few good local beers.
Betty Ford’s
Wednesday I headed out early and firstly went to one of the Gaudi places called Casa Batllo, spent a while looking round there which was pretty cool
Afterwards I went to Casa Mila but nothing to see from the outside as they were renovating, I didn’t go in there. Then just wandered around La Rambla and found a cool market called La Boqueria I ended up going past there quite a few times to buy food. Also got water and few other food stuffs from a Carrefour Market which was close by too.
Wandered down to the one part of the harbour and looked round there which was nice to see. I wandered around a place called Maremagnum a while to cool off a bit and use the bathrooms vs paying for public ones elsewhere.
There is another cable car in the harbour area that wasn’t running when I was there that day (not that I was planning to go on it though)
Another “mirror shot” I’m in the 4th square from the top left
After a bit more wandering I had a rest and then headed out later in the day to Plaça d’Espanya which was cool to see all the things there, is the area where they have the Mobile World Congress anually. I went up to to the top of this Arenas de Barcelona shopping center and got some nice views from up there too.
I saw a few people put stickers on lights like this, I think it is some sort of thing people do after they have been in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya at the top.
Arenas de Barcelona
View from top of Arenas de Barcelona
View from top of Arenas de Barcelona
View from top of Arenas de Barcelona
Had dinner at another place my hosts recommended called Caravelle where I had a few local beers and some stunning Taco’s very yummy. I had 2 tacos (Smoked Carnitas – Pork shoulder, roast corn, ancho chilli & tomatillo salsa and Slow cooked beef cheek – Guajillo chilli, radish, pickled cabbage, horseradish crema) both of which were stunning, the Carnitas one was the best of I had to choose.
There were way more chips but they came earlier than the meal so I had chowed quit a few already. Super yummy dinner !!!
Thursday I had a few big things booked. For some of the bigger things you have to book (or queue big time) for certain times. I woke up early so headed off to Park Güell and got to the park at 8am when it opened, my entry time for the museum section was only 9am so found the gate and chatted to person to check I was in right place, I was, she said I could go in then if I wanted. Whoa – cool – bonus. So I managed to get all the pics I wanted before hoards of people arrived a bit later, so was super chuffed.
After spending a decent bit of time taking photos and reading the stuff at Park Güell I headed off to Montjuïc where I took the tram (as I still had time left on my T10 Metro pass for that ride – I used 9 of the 10 trips on my T10 Metro thing I bought in the end so worked out well) up to the Telefèric du Montjuïc which is a cable car to the top of Montjuïc. That was pretty cool. At the top I managed to get a good view over Barcelona, weather wasn’t that clear but was nice, went in and checked round the castle at the top too.
Zoomed in shot of Sagrada Familia from inside the cable car
Then the final item on the day’s agenda was to go to Sagrada Família. I got there with plenty of time to spare and took my photos from outside first, managed to get a few really nice ones even with the sun not playing ball for some.
Then my entry time came up and I went inside. OMG … it is quite hard to describe how amazing it is inside. Check out the following photos and they pretty much speak for themselves. I am going to have to limit the no. of photos here as I have so many, and even so … none of them truly do it justice vs seeing it in person. I’ll still include quite a few.
Zoom into the above picture of the organ
Looking down from when I was half way down the Passion Tower
I also took 2 videos, much the same as each other but will include both here for you to watch.
Friday was my final day in Barcelona so I didn’t want to do too much as needed to be at the airport at 14:10 for my 16:10 flight so didn’t do much. I just went out to Barceloneta beach and wandered along with my feet in the Mediterranean Sea. I picked up some cool pebbles to bring home from there as I found out that Emirates allowed 30kg luggage for economy and I was only about 20.5kg so had ample allowance.
People had warned me big time about Barcelona and pickpockets etc. I didn’t experience anything like that (thankfully) I think you need to be a bit silly and stupid or negligent to be caught by then, if you know what you are doing and are conscious of what’s going on around you then you’ll be totally fine. I didn’t let it worry me at all.
Leaving Barcelona brought my holiday sightseeing to a close. I’ll still write a few more blog posts for various other aspects though. What an amazing holiday is all I have to say !!!