Category Archives: Spain

I think we are craving a routine! This morning we again went back to the same yummy bakery and then headed out for a walking tour. With same guide! The theme of this tour was just an introduction to Barcelona. He even remembered us and joked that we were apprentices in training. Standouts to me that we passed were a church that had been damaged during the Spanish Civil War and then later restored and Roman ruins, aqueducts and legends of Barcelona.

After the tour we headed out to La Bouqueria to grab some lunch and snacks for our beach day! A bit of a walk later we made it to the main beach Barceloneta. The sand was so fine blew in the wind. There were also lots of vendors of he beach including a drink service, which seemed to be rather successful. We had fun in the sun and of course had a little bit of a naptime. Possibly we got a little too much sun…. We walked back to the main city centre to have some paella. It is essentially similar to sopa de arroz, except with more spices and meat. We also had some sangria and thoroughly enjoyed this dinner unlike the night before.

We then walked across town to watch the magic fountain show. It is three hours long and goes with lights and music. It was absolutely stunning and the fountain was so much grander than I had imagined it to be! It was another late night and as we were working our way back there were still people out eating dinner. Spaniards are true night owls! We made our way back half asleep and crashed instantaneously as soon as we got into bed.

Rise and shine to the bakery! We followed our noses to find an insanely cheap and delicious baked goods that we defiantly loaded up on. Now we had a few hours to kill before our afternoon walking tour started. We went down Las Ramblas, the main shopping street, this area is also know for street performers, street vendors and pick pockets. Holding onto our things we wandered through the streets and ended up going all the way through to the La Boquiera. It is the largest outdoor market here in Barcelona. I can say that it is by far had the most fresh fruit and juices that I have ever seen anywhere! There were so many fresh fruit juices in any combination that you could imagine for only a euro! I was impressed that the prices were so reasonable, usually such tourist attractions have raised prices catered to tourist, but it seems like the vendors in La Boquiera didn’t support this whatsoever. We both bought a few juices and fresh fruit for lunch to make our way out of the crowded market and each our lunch outside before our tour started.

Our tour was focused around Gaudi and Modernism architecture, and our tour guide was amazing! The tour guide joked that people only know of Guadi and his work because his name is easy to remember and pronounce to foreigners. I think he might be onto something! Also his explanation of modernism architecture is the combination of different materials and asymmetry. He lead us through the city focusing on the gothic quarter and showed us some stunning buildings with an amazing explanation of their backstory. Some things that really stood out to me is that on the bottom of some patios there were mosaic tiles arranged in beautiful patterns. Now depending on how wealthy you were the more colours on the mosaic you had. Also along the sidewalks of some wealthy streets there were benches again in mosaics. The things is that the bourgeoisie thought it was too cold in the wintertime to go and sit on them, so they were built to have burning coal go inside and warm the whole bench! Clever right? We walked by some of Guadi’s famous buildings, of course you have to pay to go inside. One of the buildings that stood out to me was the Casa Battlo, apparently the whole interior of the house is a dragon. So as you work your way up to the top floor you go through different part of the dragon such as the stomach and heart. The tour ended outside the Sangrada Familia where he explained to us why he thinks the building will never be finished. Apparently it is suppose to be completed in the next 25 years for the 100^th anniversary of Gaudi’s death, but there are still a few towers that need to go up. Here in Spain building do not have to pay taxes as long as they are under construction. Another interesting thing is that shareholders privately own the church, so once is was finished they would have to pay millions every year from their generated revenue.

After the tour Andrea and I lined up to go inside and enter, since we planned ahead his time and bought our tickets online. It was like walking inside a rainbow! There is no other was I could describe how stunning it was. The stain glass throughout laminated the interior white walls in a canvas of colours. The columns in the middle looked like tree trunks and up at the ceiling were beautiful patterns that looked like flowers, which I think were suppose to be the tree’s foliage. We sat and just gawked for about 30 minutes. Once we finished up we made our way back to our hostel, but not before picking up some beach supplies for tomorrow!

This morning we all woke up bright and early to make our way to the airport. Andrea’s parents are headed on their way back home to Edmonton and Andrea and I are off to Barcelona! Andrea’s parents hired a personal taxi to take us to the airport. Before we got in Bridget said I was in for the ride of my life. Now I can saw that I got to experience Italian driving and once we got to the airport I could tell that her family was relieved to be on solid ground. I on the other hand didn’t think that the driving was that crazy in comparison to my experiences in Mexico. After we said our goodbyes to her parents we had some time to kill before our flight was ready for boarding.

When we landed we got onto the metro, being careful of all of our belongings, as we were warned from fellow travelers about how horrid the pickpockets are here. Once we got off we made our way to the hostel, we got a little lost, but a lady approached us because she recognized our BC flags on our backpack! She is originally from Victoria and lead us the right way and we made it to the hostel shortly after.

After dropping off our bags we decided to out and explore the city, despite the extremely early morning. We made our way to the Sangrada Famlia. Even though the church was covered with scaffolding and under construction, it did not take away from its beauty. We tired to go inside but the line was way too big! We went inside the crypt portion and when we looked up we could see a little bit of the stain glass glow from above. Seeing the whole thing is at the top of our list while we are here! After walking around the exterior of the building we made our way to go see another one of Guadi’s works; Park Guell. It was quite a bit of a walk, it seems like Barcelona is a city where everything is spread out in comparison to other places we have visited in terms of tourist attractions. It turns out that you have to pay to go inside the portion of the park with all of Guadi’s work, but after 9pm it is free. So we decided to limb up and explore the rest of the park until was 9. At the top we took in a beautiful view of the ocean and see the deeply defined streets that carved straight from below and straight out into the sea lined with trees. We were able to see the beginning of sunset, before we headed down to go and see Gaudi’s work. Mosaics were everywhere and so brightly coloured! At the top of the mosaic benches we could see two building that looked life like gingerbread houses and see the famous lizard statute.

Once we made our way down the hill in search of food. The walk took a little longer than we anticipated since we were determined to go a tapa restaurant that had been recommended to us. On the hour and a half walk there we passed a really interesting neighborhood it looked like maybe it was possibly a university area. The streets were filled with young people, restaurants and bars and everyone looked as they were having a great time and just enjoying everyone’s company. We finally made it to the restaurant completely starved! Now the food was cheap with so many options, but we found it actually rather disappointing. At this point though, anything and everything was what we needed to fill us up! After we finished our meal on Spaniard time; at 11 pm, we headed back to our hostel to call it a night.