Barcelona

We have just spent five nights in Barcelona. What an amazing city!! Very vibrant and full of interesting people and architecture. We decided to do a couple of ‘free’ walking tours, similar to ones we had done previously. We got ourselves organised – but were running late, and forgot the map. Not the best start – long story short, we missed the meeting point and start time. So …plan B.

The city is full of museums and one was on our ‘to do list’. It was the Science Museum that is interactive and is rated very highly. Trouble was it was miles away. But we took a big bendy bus and eventually got there, after completing the uphill part of the journey on foot. We had a brilliant afternoon looking around – and trying the many experiments. It felt like a school trip – but I didn’t have any charges. There were lots of school groups, and some frazzled looking teachers!! There were everything from uni groups to classes of 3 years – that we met in the bathrooms!! Everyone was catered for. Probably the highlight was the man made rain forest. Quite amazing complete with fish and alligators swimming around.

The following day we did get to do the walking tour. It followed the work of Gaudi – a very famous achitect/designer. His work is very distinctive and was well ahead of his time. We looked at places around the central city and then took the metro to his still unfinished church – the Sagrada Familia.

Gaudi died in 1926, and the construction still goes on. He left the designs/plans, and they are apparently being followed. In the afternoon we went to a park that also has many examples of his work. Very fascinating.

The following day we hunted out another walking tour – and decided to investigate the Gothic part of the city. Matteus from Sweden guided the group and we once again learnt a lot. He was very knowledgeable and passionate about the city. The buildings are amazing. We  decided to enrol in a cooking class in the evening. We ate tapas, made paella and sangria. It was a great night, and we met some other younger travellers. The paella wasn’t that great I have to say 🙁  the chef forgot about it and it burnt a little. The best paella comes from Valencia, according to the experts. The sangria made up for it, and I got to mix a brew. It is very easy and quite refreshing. I also wanted to have another Spanish experience – to see a flamenco show. Richard and Georgia weren’t fussed, but I got to see a small show. Quite entertaining, and is certainly high energy, but once again the best is performed in another city – Seville.

We had a good look around the city – most of it was redeveloped for the 1992 Olympics, and tourism has taken off as a result. 35 million people visited last year.The port area was quite amazing – the biggest floating mall in the world, a man made Egyptian sand beach, and lots of other businesses.Spain is feeling the recession, but it didn’t seem that way. The unemployment rate is 20% + in some cities, and they were talking about some of the banks not being able to make payments in the very near future… We could easily have spend loads more time in Barcelona – but there is always next time!!