Trip to Spain: Barcelona Day 3

Tourist:

The gils wanted to shop but I wanted to do some very touristy things so we split up. The girls spent a good portion of their day in the Chuca district especially along the Passeig de Gracia where you can find stores like Burberry, Armani, Zara, Ferregamo, Louis Vuitton, etc.

I headed out on the bus turistic. This is a very touristy thing to do but I found it a great way to explore the city. You can buy a one or multiple day pass. I forget exactly how much it cost, but it wasn't very expensive. They way it works is you buy a pass and you can get on the bus as much as you want for as many day passes you buy. There are three routes throuout the city, red, blue and green (the green route is only open March 14 - Sept. 28). Along each of the routes there are specific touristy stops which you can get off and explore further. You can then get back on the bus and go somewhere else. There are specific stops where you can transfer from one route to another. Your ticket also gets you some earphones that you can plug into your seat and listen to a recorded tour of the city as you drive around. The bus is a double decker style with the top level open to the air. If it's nice weather the top it where you want to be, of course everyone thinks that, so it fills up fast. You can avoid a little of this by getting on at less crowded stops. Here's a scan of the bus route map and a picture from the top of the bus that gives you an idea of what it looks like.

I really liked this. Having never been to Barcelona and wanting to see as much as I could this was great. It took you all over, you could get on an off pretty much all day (I think it ran until about 6pm or 7pm. You can also take pictures right from the bus if you don't want to get off at a particular spot. I spent a bunch of time just riding around and listening to the tour, but I stopped at a couple of places.

Poble Espanyol:

I really liked this place. It was built as a temporary exhibit for a world's fair but people really liked it so it's still standing. It's sort of a recreated mini version of Spain. There are examples of many different kinds of Spansih archtecture and there are bunches of shops and cafes. Many ofthe shops sell hand made items and the shop usually serves as the artists workshop/studio as well. You can take a recorded self guided tour for a few euros to hear more abou the different architectual elements. If I would have had more time, I would have stayed here longer, but I stayed for about two hours then moved on.

The Barcelona Aquarium:

A decent aquarium, not the greatest I've ever been to, not the worse. The aquarium is near the harbor and there are some restaurants nearby as well.

Egypt Museum (Museu Egipci De Barcelonaz: http://www.museuegipci.com/) So, if you like Egyptian stuff, this is a nice little museum. The displays are very nicely displayed in a very neat, modern, streamlined displays. They have several mummies and a great explanation of the relationship between the physical and spiritual worlds in ancient egypt. It's not terribly big and I spent about an hour or two there. No pictures were allowed in the museum but you can see some on their website.

Anton Gaudi

Anton Gaudi is Barcelona's best known archetect and you can his works all over Barcelona. They say Barcelona has always embraced the non traditional styles and freedom of artistic expression that Gaudi represented and his work has a great influence over the entire psyche of the city and it's people. A few Gaudi shots:

Homeward Bound:

I met up with the girls late in the day and we went for a last dinner in Bercelona. It was some little place we stumbled on that had pretty good food:

The next morning we visited a farmers market just off the Rambla, good coffee and pastries and almost any kind of fresh food you'd like. Smoothies seemed to be really popular:

The Barcelona airport was a bit chaotic but getting through security was pretty easy once we identified exactly where we supposed to go. Our flight was on time and uneventful. Thus endeth our trip to Spain.

Trip to Spain: Barcelona Day 2

Arc di Triumph & Parc de le Citadella

The girls decided to sleep in this morning and I made my way to the Barcelona Zoo. I'll do a seperate post about the zoo, for those of you interested in that.

I got to see a bunch of other things along my way to and from the zoo. The Arc di Triumph and the Parc de le Ciutadella were both cool to see:

Chocolate Museum

One other thing I did was visit the Museum of Chocolate (http://www.pastisseria.com/en/PortadaMuseu). I found it pretty cool. It's not very big so you can easily explore a majority of the museum in an hour or so, and of course buy lots of delicious chocolate. One of the coolest things here are the various sculptures that have been done entirely in chocolate. I have a few pictures, but some aren't great becasue of the reflection of the glass enclosures:

Mount Juic and the Funicular

After the Chocolate Museum I quickly walked through the Bari Gothic to meet the girls for lunch. We had tapas at a little greek place...but you can find tapas places all over. We headed out to Mount Juic via the funicular. The funicular is kind of a cable car, you can take one of the metro lines there then take the funicular up the side of the mountain to Mount Juic. Mount Juic (or Mount of the Jews) is kind of a touristy spot with a castle at the top, the Castell de Mountjuic. There are plenty of great views and photo opportunities here. The olympic village is nearby as well.

Bari Gothic

After some sightseing we headed to the Bari Gothic. The Bari Gothic is an old area of Barcelona known for it's gothic architecture. Plenty of sights to see, including the Barcelona Cathedral )cathedral La Seu) which we stopped to see (the geese were there to warn against intruders) plus shops and museums.

We finished up the day with dinner at a restaurant called L'Olive (www.re-olive.com) which was good but not great. They had an appetizer of fried artichokes which sounded great so we got some, turns out most of their main dished come with this as a side, so skip them as an appetizer (but they are good). I had a beef filet cooked to pefection but a little salty, Denise had a really good lamb dish and Reen had duck with strawberry sauce that she liked but I found too sweet.

Trip to Spain: Barcelona Day 1

Tortosa to Barcelona:

We left the Parador and made our way to Barcelona. The drive wasn't bad, about two and a half hours and failry easy directions. We stayed at the City Pelayo hotel (http://www.hlghotels.com/). This was probably the smallest hotel room e stayed in, but we were failry prepared for this; and again, we weren't staying in our rooms much so it wasn't a big deal. In general if you are someone who is sensitive to a small room, you'll need to pay for something extra in Spain, at least from my expereince. All the rooms were clean, neat but on the small side with limited luxuries and failry firm to hard beds. This hotel also included a breakfast, but was pretty limited and is in a weird location in basically the basement. The best thing about this hotel was it's location, it was within walking distance of the Rambla and lots of touristy stuff.

Michael Collins:

We checked in but just dropped off our bags as we had to return the rental car. This was far more difficult then getting the car. We found ourselves surrounded by pedestrians, lost, driving in circles, trying to get directions from locals, etc. We eventually returned it and grabbed the mero to La Sagrada Familia, probably Gaudi's best know work. A side story here. We were wandering around the Sagrada and debating if we should buy tickets to go in, we decided to grab some lunch. After we wandered unsuccessfully to some places we landed at Michael Collins (http://www.michaelcollinspubs.com/index.html), an Irish bar nearby. Now I pushed us to go here a little...I didn' feel like wandering around for an hour to get a quick bite to eat, and the girls were not thrilled. But I have to say we had a great time here. It was really all becasue of the bartender, Niles, who was really funny and pearsonable. Everyone spoke English and it was that, insert swear word every third word kind of English. We were asking him alot of what we should do and he advised us not to go in the Sagrada Familia because there wasn't alot to see unless you wanted to wait to go up in the towers. Niles told us a great many stories of him coming to Spain and still not speaking a word of Spanish, despite having lived there for like 10 years. By the time we were leaving Niles gave us hats and key chains and other Michael Collins advertising trinkets.

Sagrada Familia:

Ok, you have to go see it. It is an iconic Barcelona image. Probably Anton Gaudi's best known piece and it is amazing to see. The pictures below do not do it justice. It's still under construction after being started in 1882. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia

Sagrada Pics:

Las Ramblas:

We then made our way back to the hotel and did a bit of unpacking then quickly off to the Rambla. What to say about the Rambla...it's kind of like a big sidewalk in the middle of a street. Everyone congregates here and ambles along shopping, snacking, drinking, people watching, etc. It runs from the Placa Catalunya (which our hotel was near) to the Christopher Columbus statue at the harbor. It's lined with restaurants, bars, shops, farmer's markets, hotels, pastry shoppes, etc. It's a great place to wander, especially in the warm spanish weather. Nearby is the Bari Gothic and plenty of tourity stuff is within walking distance. We walked the length of the Rambla then spent some time along the harbor.

After ambling the Rambla we went back to the hotel, changed then headed out to dinner at Cent Onze restaurant ( http://www.centonze.es/en/Portada/) just off the Rambla. A very modern space we had cocktails at the bar then dinner. The food was excellent if a bit pricey.

Trip to Spain: Tortosa Day Two

Our second day in Tortosa began with torrential rain. Since you really have to walk around Tortosa we decided to see if we could drive somewhere where we could do something inside and explore the countryside a little. The desk staff were failry helpful and Denise and Reen already had reserched something called the Cathedral of Wine. So we threw together a trip plan and hopped into the car. The weather got slightly better but remained grey and drisly, at times raining little harder so a road trip was a pretty good idea.

We started by heading off to the Coves Meravelles (http://www.eirescot.com/activities.asp?tact=48) in the little town of Benifallet. Getting there was a bit sketchy. You have to travel up the side of a mountain on tiny roads and at one point there were some rather large rocks on the road. This trip was especially challenging for Reen as she is not a fan of heights. Here she is runing away from the edge of a photo lookout that Denise had coaxed her to go onto:

The caves were actually pretty cool. When we got to the little giftshop where you buy the tickets were were unsure if we should actually go in. It was raining and the girls didn't exactly have rubber boots on, additionally Denise was a little concerned about how she would be underground...the confined spaces phobia surfacing a little. We were all actually joking about how this little trip was a little scary...all we needed were some sharks and then each one of us could be confronting our own assorted demons (myself having the ever-so-slightest fear of sharks). The guy at the gift shop was funny and really sold us on going. One of my favorite pictures from the trip is this as the attendant made the girls wear these funny hats that converted into fans:

The tour guide was really nice and asked the group if they sopke Catalan or Spanish as she spoke both. She apologized for not being able to speak English but she really tried throughout the tour to go out of her way to use the little English she did know to point out interesting things to us. We also had printed material in English that was sort of a self guided tour. The tour itself was probably a little over an hour which was a perfect amount of time, no pictures as they were not allowed in the cave. Denise did fine, she was a little nervous entering the cave as it was a bit dark and enclosed but soon opened up and there were some hand rails and it was well lit.

After the Caves we wanted to go to La Cathedral del Vi (which the signs in town call 'Cellar Modernista') in the town of El Pinell De Brai but it was closed for siesta so we went to search out lunch. We ended up in a restaurant in town called 'Restaurant Angel'. We all loved the food here, in fact the girls thought the paella here was better then at the Parador. I had rabbit with snails (conje con caracoles) that was delicious. The starter plates are large and can definately be shared. A pic outside the restaurant with the cloudy contryside in the background:

After a leisurely lunch we returned to the Cathedral of wine. The Cathedral is one of several made by Cesar Martinelli a contemporary of Anton Gaudi, celebrated archetect of Barcelona. Denise and Reen are much more wine aficionados then I but we were all a little excited to see this place. I wouldn't suggest it unless you are really into Cesar Martinelli. The building itself is cool and I have some pictures below but the tour was longer then it needed to be and the tour guide was down right antagonistic to us. She didn't speak English, but again, there was a pamphlet in English were were perfectly fine with reading. She seemed annoyed with us from the get go, if I remember correctly we were the last ones to join this particular tour group and she was waiting about three mintues while we got tickets and made our way to the group. She made it abudently clear she wouldn't be speaking English and then pretty much ignored us the rest of the tour. Additionally the wine you get to taste at the end...was terrible! In fact I'd say it was the worst wine I have ever tasted in my life...the girls hated it also. Here's a link to a site about Martenelli and some of his cathedrals: http://www.gaudiallgaudi.com/AA301.htm

Pics:

We stopped at a few small towns as we made our way back to the Parador but nothing amazing, it was kind of a low key day. Since we ate a big lunch we decided to get some snacks at a store and continue our low key day snacking, packing and drinking wine in our rooms. It was a fun ending to the day, we were all in pajamas just chatting the evening away.