Barcelona is colourful, vibrant, expensive, alternative and my favourite city so far.
The Fountain in Park de la Ciutadella
I’m not the most romantic soul; in fact, I have been accused of being a cynic more than once. But now, I believe in love at first sight, because that is exactly how I feel about Barcelona. As we arrived from the airport after a flight from Naples and the city began to emerge, I just stared out the window of our cab, smiling. Barcelona is beautiful, interesting, clean, well-planned and full of charm. The seemingly constant sunshine also adds to the perfect picture. Initially, I thought this may well be a case of post-Naples fever, wherein the sufferer finds everything they see after visiting dirty ol’ Naples to be beautiful and clean. However, this is not the case; I have only grown in admiration for Barcelona in the week we have been here. I actually found this entry the hardest to write of all so far (a whopping 5 blog posts!) because so much of what I love about here is the atmosphere, which is quite hard to convey in the written form.
Barcelona’s beach
Confession: I had little prior knowledge of this place. Unlike Rome, which I felt I already knew a lot about, I had naught but a passing interest in the work of Gaudi and some odd stories from travelling friends in my Barcelona basket of preconceptions. This has been a blessing.We’ve been able to discover it’s amazing architecture, parks and plazas and vibrant atmosphere by losing the map and dodging through the backstreets and into different districts. We’ve seen so much just by wandering aimlessly. It is a city designed for the pedestrian, public transport user, driver and cyclist to live in perfect harmony; the traffic chaos of Italy is now long forgotten. We have been walking everywhere and it has been the perfect way to get around. We have visited the port area, the beach, the Park de la Ciutadella, La Rambala, the districts of L’Eixample and Sant Anoni, the parks on Muntanya de Montjuic, the markets and the old town, which all feel like they could all belong to different cities, but they are still perfectly Barcelona. Don’t get me wrong, Barcelona is more than just a pretty face. Alternative culture bubbles away in the side streets, particular around Carrer de Taller, which is lined with record stores, vintage clothing shops and has young disaffected youth sporting their best Megadeth t-shirts in its bars and eateries. We loved strolling up and down here and watching the people and perusing the stores. In other areas of town there are also some fun places that match the Barcelona rock-n-roll spirit; like The Cat Bar, a vegan burger bar with artisan beers on tap was a great place to eat, drink and chill out that perfectly fits that aesthetic.
El Raval
Many of the days have been spent sightseeing in the morning and early afternoon, sitting on the hostel’s terrace in the late afternoon during ‘siesta’ and venturing back out in the evening and night for more sight seeing, food and drink. This lovely slow pace has meant we have seen a lot and also been able to rest up. I feel rejuvenated by the lifestyle here. Not only that, we’ve been indulging in one of my favourite past times, eating. We’ve been filling up on tapas, pinchos (the tapas on bread with a toothpick in them), thin baguettes called ‘bocadillos’ filled with jamon or potato omelette, paella and local beers. There is much more variety than we found in Italy and the vegetarian option for my partner in crime has had much more to do with vegetables. The highlight has been an amazing Catalan Cream I had at the tapas bar where scenes from Woody Allen’s ‘Vicky Christina Barcelona’ was filmed, ‘Taller de Tapas’. This is the the local version of a crème brûlée. it was superb. Oh yes, my sweet tooth truly is out of control.
Arc de Triumf
The city is mad about it’s team, FCBarcelona. Messi and his boys feature in billboards, posters, TV ads and the many, many official merchandise stores across the city. So when they played in a final against cross-country rivals Atlético Madrid on a night we were here, the natural thing to do was go find ourselves a TV and watch it unfold. I’m not going to pretend I know much about soccer, I come out of the woodwork when Australia is in the World Cup, but otherwise I have to admit I’m not really excited by the sport. But suddenly, after a couple of beers, I became some sort of soccer expert, discussing defensive errors, yellow card decisions and ooh-ing and ahh-ing in all the right places. It was great fun. We watched the game in a little fan bar called La Taverna, it holds 90 people, and I think on this night all 90 and then some were in there. Here, the staff all wear the jersey, they sing songs, they pump in chants over the loud speakers, they sell buckets of 5 beers for 12 Euro and EVERYONE is going for Barça. This is unfortunate, considering that they lost 1-nil on this night. Oh well, I’m used to backing the losing team (I love you, Carlton).
Plaça de Catalunya
We have had some very cultured experiences too. After seeing Batlló house on our first city walk i sat down and designed a DIY walking tour of some Gaudi and ‘Modernisme’ works. It is an interesting movement and it pushes boundaries that I have never really seen in architecture before, but that being said, I am no expert. We also walked to La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s ultimate work. A church that they started building in 1882 and are yet to complete (they’re hoping for a 2028 finish). The project is now a delicate balance of building and restoring at the same time. It’s big, it’s gaudy (pun intended) and it’s a major icon of the city. I’m not sure I like it, but I know it’s interesting. We also took some time to visit the Picasso Museum which was an interesting retrospective of his career. I particularly liked seeing his earlier works and the temporary exhibition on the site that explored modern artists’ reactions to Picasso’s work. If you want to go to the Picasso museum don’t expect to see the seminal works, like Guernica, The Weeping Woman or the Les Demoiselles d’Avignon; however, there are still amazing pieces and I gained a really good understanding of his development as a painter and as an artist from the visit.
Sagrada Familia
The only down side to this place is that in certain parts it is excessively expensive. Food on La Rambla, the main tourist strip is really expensive. “Surprise, surprise, Ali” I hear you cry. The fortunate thing is that usually this can be rectified with a quick trip off the main drag, but sometimes in Barcelona that expensive price tag seems to bleed over into other areas too. It is also disconcerting to hear EVERYONE you speak to, from guides and hostel workers to fellow travellers talking about the rampant pick-pockets that seem to be making a killing on every tourist who steps onto the street. We have, luckily, not experienced this, but it is a bit of a turn off.
Public art by the beach
Gorgeous Barcelona is a gem. The city has so many of the elements that I love. The people are lovely, the place looks beautiful, it is artsy, creative and alternative. Listen to me gushing – it must be love.
Ali's adventure 