Simon and I bid a sad farewell to Edinburgh, I really love that city, definitely somewhere I could live easily and now it holds such memories for us! We caught a Ryan air flight down to Barcelona for a few days to catch up with my cousin, Simon Mason (Christmas dinner with the family will be too confusing with multiple Simons! It will require my Simon being renamed I think!). Luckily all went smoothly with our flight, although ryanair was a bit disturbing with constant sales pitches over the loudspeaker for food, duty free items (both to be expected), calling cards, lotto tickets and even smokeless cigarettes (for those who can't go 1.5hrs without a nicotine hit!). They even played a little congratulatory song for arriving on time, random!
We caught the Aerobus to Sants train station and transferred to the subway and made it to our hotel. Simon Mason and his workmate, Ignatio, met us a few minutes later and took us to a nice restaurant for some traditional fare, yum! Dinner over here is pretty late, after 9pm is not out of the ordinary.
The Madrid-Barcelona football (ie, soccer!) game was being played, so the streets were deserted, with everyone inside glued to their tv's, it was quite bizarre! The waiter wasn't really very interested in taking our order when the tv was on in the background!
The next morning, the room's blinds were shut and we slept in. I went to check the time and expected 9am (a pretty good sleep in for me), but shockingly discovering 1pm!! That's a first for me, but as Mum always says, 'you obviously needed it' - fighting a cold will do that I guess!
So we headed out to explore the city, walked along the bustling busy street of La Ramblas, it was a bit intimidating after the relative calm and easy atmosphere of the royal mile in Edinburgh, with Spanish conversations left, right, and centre.
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| On the streets of Barcelona |
We visited some of the sights of Barcelona, in particular, the famous Santa Maria del Mar
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| The bit of Santa Maria del Mar that could fit in my camera screen! |
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| Greenery on a Barcelona street |
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| Waterfront |
Another trip was a walk up to Montjuic (seen behind in the crazy sculpture loops below!) to have a good view of the city and suburbs. There was an old fort on tipped of the hill, with huge cannons that disturbingly, didn't look that old.
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| Montjuic in the background |
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| The view from part of the way up Montjuic |
Simon and I ventured on the metro across to La Sagrada Familia, which had so many tourist buses lined up outside, a 200m line to get tickets, and queues within the building that we didn't bother to go inside.
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| La Sagrada Familia - the church that just keeps on being built! |
From here we walked down a few streets and then followed Diagonal up until we got to the station, it took a bit longer than we had thought (Mum, think our Munich 'we will find a bakery around the
next corner' expedition!!)
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| One of the old bull fighting arenas, after the ban comes into play this year, we're not sure what they'll do there... |
From there we headed to Parc Guell, and fought the throngs of tourists to get a feel of the place. I think I'll have to do more Gaudi research before I'll understand any of it!
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| A lot of people (tourists) and a bit of Parc Guell |
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| Another Gaudi building |
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| We started to focus our exploration on the alleyways of Barcelona |
After seeing a few of the Gaudi sights, Simon and I started to just explore the alleyways of the city, we found some pretty cool little shops and areas that we otherwise wouldn't have even imagined existed. That's the side of Barcelona that I enjoyed the most (apart from the food!).
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| Outside the Arc de Triomph |
Simon Mason also took us to places like Arc de Triomph, and we had many lunches and dinners at places recommended by his workmates in Barcelona (local knowledge is the best!). One night we went to a seafood restaurant on a street that was rather inconspicuous, you walk in, pick your fish (that is all laid out on ice in front of you, some still moving (eugh! But at least it's fresh!) to be cooked for you, grab some drinks and a table and wait for your number to be called. We feasted!
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| Our amazing seafood feast at La Paradeta - yum! |
Wandering streets during our days, Simon liked looking at all the patisseries and delis in the city, especially the selection of jamon!
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| Simon likes the delis in Barcelona, lots of cured meats! (sorry to Chloe and Kristy!) |
We frequented bars Simon Mason recommended, one had the most amazing gin and tonic, as Simon M said, 'you can tell the guy really loves it', as each g&t prepared by this bartender (in a flannel like shirt done all the way up to his collar!) had about five steps, swirling large cubes of ice to cool the glass (presumably!), rinds of lime and lemon which were worked vigorously with a contraption of some sorts, with gin and tonic added at the end; I think there might have been some sugar in there too, it tasted pretty lolly like! Yum! We got home a little late that night(!), but not late for Spanish standards, the clubs and bars don't get going till after 2 around here.
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| Even Simon's iPhone had a few too many by the time of this G&T! |
On Saturday, Simon Mason took us to Sitges ('Sit-ches'), a 40min train hop from Barcelona, it is largely a very pretty tourist beach town. We walked along the foreshore, passed many groups having wedding photos taken, sampled some tapas, local beers and wine from various places along our way and made it to a restaurant recommended by a workmate of Simon M's, Ignatio.
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| Streetscape in Sitges |
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| Simon Mason and I outside one of the Churches in Sitges - loving the blue sky! |
We were there for paella, and according to Ignatio, traditionally, it must be prepared and eaten within sight of the ocean, must not be a 'mixed' paella, and many other rules I won't go into here! We started with the biggest steamed mussels I have ever seen, munched on fine paella with fresh prawns and mussels, sipped a nice white wine alongside and watched the ocean roll in (the restaurant was on the beachfront). After all that we went for a lie down next to the beach to digest and watched kite-surfers get dunked in the surf, what a fiddly and exhausting sport!
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| Sitges beach-strip |
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| We lay on the grass over the beach at Sitges to let everything digest! |
On the Sunday, Simon M met us after his epic morning mountain bike ride and we wandered around the Barceloneta area, had a burger at one of his fave places and sipped beer by the foreshore.
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| Simon's ultra burger that included blue cheese! |
That night we had tapas at a very traditional catalunya'n restaurant, it was delicious! We started to feel like we'd eaten far too well this week, some salads are required next week!
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| Catalan Tapas with Jamon, Goats cheese and Duck Pate |
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From here we walked down a few streets and then followed Diagonal up until we got to the station, it took a bit longer than we had thought (Mum, think our Munich 'we will find a bakery around the next corner' expedition!!)
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