Barcelona!

Nov 18 - 22

Back on the road - arrived in Barcelona, Spain!

After 3 months and 4 days, we are back on the road again to continue the grand adventure.  Way back in April and May when we were setting all this up, the plan was to be in the British Isles for 3 months, Croatia for a couple of weeks, and then Spain, France & Italy for 3 months.  From there it would be Bali for December and New Zealand for January, February and March.  Because of the Christmas season, we figured it would be wise to have flights booked so we didn’t get stuck in Europe (how awful would that be?!? )  So we had a flight booked from Barcelona to Bali for early December.  That meant we had to get ourselves from Vancouver to Barcelona to pick up the flight.  And here we are.  We’ve spent the last two and a half days in Barcelona - the first was a cranky day as we were both adjusting ourselves to the time change.  The second day was much better.

First of all - palm trees!  Second - back to extravagant old buildings.
I love Europe for this!

I don't know what these trees are called.  I call them 'camouflage
trees'.  The bark is kind of like arbutus.  But this weird green colour.
They are all over the place here.

Strange sculpture in the middle of Barcelona.  Upside down staircase?

Too bad we were on a tour bus, or I would have gone in
here to buy some happy pills!

Beautiful tile mosaic benches with the most astonishingly
intricate lampposts attached.  There are bench seats on
both sides of this.

The lamp posts.  These are all over downtown
Barcelona - gorgeous.

Because I liked the colours.  And the details.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but the first day I felt like I didn’t get it!  The second day I realized that I did get it.  As much as I’m not a ‘city’ person when it comes to visiting other countries, I will say I really enjoyed our days here. The city is a combination of really innovative new architecture, and beautiful old buildings that are not anything like what we experienced in England or Scotland.  The older buildings are often decorated with some sort of painting, tile work, sticky-outy window things (yes, I said that!) and lots of curlicue type finishes.  Almost all of them have little Juliette type balconies with the most amazing assortment of beautiful iron railings.  Hanging out the laundry seems to be a national sport - look down any street and you’ll see a fine collection of clotheslines or racks on the balconies or hanging out windows.  Many buildings, old and new, have a curious ‘outer shell’ of sorts.  I guess it’s to block the sunlight - I imagine it can get quite warm here in the summer months.

A very decorative 'outer shell' on this building.  Took this
photo for my dad - I think he'd like it.  

The Port of Barcelona official building.  So extravagant looking.  And a lovely
shade of yellow.

Typical side street in Barcelona.  Flags and laundry.
And very narrow.

Pretty sidewalk.  And one of my new shoes that are very
comfy for walking.

Another building with a kind of 'curtain' in front of all the windows.  Saw
a lot of variations of this.

And then there are the buildings that are decorated with paintings.
And cute little balconies.

Typical 'sticky-outy' thing on a building.

I have NO IDEA what this was all about.  The entire front
of the building seems to be covered with these white and
black 'eyeball' type things.  Very odd.

Ho hum.  Just another pretty building decoration.

The sidewalks are beautiful - no ordinary pavement here.  They like to incorporate pretty designs into it.  A simple thing, but it makes the street seem more beautiful.

Sidewalk

We took one of those “hop-on/hop-off” tour busses around the city for two days and got a good feel for the place.  The first day we spent mostly in the higher-end area - something similar to Yaletown/West End/Kitsilano in Vancouver, I suppose.  Lots of beautiful apartment buildings, the usual assortment of shops and restaurants, and a fantastic waterfront with miles of beautiful sandy beach, walk/cycle paths and huge public ‘squares’ along it.

Waterfront 'seawall' walk.  Huge beach and a large cycling
and walking pathway.  Note the 'fishy' looking metal sculpture
at the end.

So we thought this was a fish (with some olives in the foreground).  Turns out

it's designed by a Canadian architect named Frank Gehry.  
And it is a fish. Huh! 

An interesting building - again with the metal 'outer shell'.
This was built for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and I believe
was housing for the athletes.

Gorgeous walkway out to a port mall.  Note the complete
lack of guardrails here.  Europeans seem to be much more
lax about things like that.  

This odd sculpture is supposed to represent ocean waves.  We caught our
shuttle bus back to the hotel across from this.

Bicycles, scooters and small motorcycles seem to be the preferred method of transportation - they are parked all over the city sidewalks.  Cyclists don’t seem to wear helmets.  You can belong to a cycle-share here as well - it’s an annual membership and your card will access these bicycles that are found all over the city.

Bicycles one side, scooters behind.  Lots of them!

We decided not to rent a vehicle.  I mean honestly, how on earth do you
decipher what this sign means?  We'd have a lot of traffic tickets I think!

We didn’t really have time to go to all the ‘touristy’ places but we did stop and walk around the Gaudi house, the fantastical Temple de la Sagrada Familia, and the Parc Guell. We didn’t go into any of them as time was limited, but it was fun to experience them even from the outside.  Unfortunately, the Gaudi house seems to be undergoing some sort of cleanup, so the front was all masked by a giant piece of fabric.

Part of the Gaudi house that we could see.  Never heard of
the guy until just before we came here.  I think I would
have liked him.  This is bizarre and fun at the same time.

If you're going to have a window opening, make sure
you frame it nicely.

Detail of the Gaudi church - aka La Sagrada Familia

Most bizarre place ever. There appear to be giant fruit bowls
on top of some of the spires.

Lizard type things that are actually water spouts.

Construction on this beauty started in 1882.  It is being built entirely
on donations . . . and probably a lot of entrance fees as well.  The lineups
were around the block to get in.  We didn't bother.  Note all the cranes.

We walked down La Ramblas the second day and of course we forgot to remove the large ’T for Tourist’ signs from our foreheads.  There are a number of tapas restaurants along this massive pedestrian street . . . and they all want you to come in to their restaurant.  Honestly if you stop to look at a table, they practically grab you and sit you down.  So Glen’s eye naturally focussed on the huge beer mugs that were on the tables, and since we had an hour before the shuttle back to our hotel, we decided to sit down and have a beverage and a snack.  One large beer, one large sangria and one ‘traditional Spanish tomato and ham bread’ later, and we were relieved of 50.29 euros.  Really, you’d think we would have learned our lesson in Paris.  Clearly we’re slow learners.  But it was fun to sit there soaking in the energy of the place, so we’ll chalk it up to experience.

La Ramblas - giant walking street mall.

Glen and the Giant Beer. Sounds like the title of a kids story.

Anne and the Giant Sangria.  Another kids story :-)

"Typical" Spanish ham and cheese bread.  (so we were told!)

The most beautiful ice cream display I've ever seen.

Look at this - fantastic!  Beautifully painted, gorgeous grillwork, and pretty
sticky-outy things.

Beautiful balcony railings

We stayed at a hotel near the airport for two reasons - first was we knew that after 15 hours of travelling from Vancouver, we’d want to get settled in quickly and not do too much the day we arrived.  Second was we had an early morning flight three days later to Malaga in the south, and didn’t want to have to deal with rush hour traffic getting to the airport.  The hotel was great - we caught a shuttle into town each day and they picked us up in the afternoon.  They had a nice restaurant for breakfast and dinner and it made for an easy 2 and a half days. The weather in Barcelona was pleasant enough - it hovered around 17 or 18 degrees.  And now we’re on the plane to Malaga.  We’re hoping Malaga will be a bit warmer as we’re getting tired of wearing the same pants.  We really only packed for summer so our ‘winter’ wardrobe is very limited.  

Our hotel - more odd architecture.  Which I really like.

This just struck me as very pretty

Pretty gates.  Tiled sidewalk.

Graffiti by our bus stop

I liked the shape of this tree trunk

And this was one of the many flowers in the tree.