Barcelona

Barcelona was a bit dissapointing. I have been there several times back in the late 70’s and early 80’s and now it has lost it’s charm

We did not get off to a good start with our accommodation. The taxi dropped us off in The Ramblas opposite our hotel from the train station. The reception was on the 2nd floor but we had a code to get in the door at ground level. Once checked in we were given instruction to take some steps then a different lift and a weird lock on the door. You swipe the card and turn the knob on the door twice anti clockwise and opposite to lock it each time you went out.

The door as a bit warped and we had to push fairly hard to open it, but eventually we were in. A few things not quite right such as the window shutters were out of alighnment and needed levering up to get shut any time we wanted them closed, The windows although double glazed did not close without a lot of force. No plug in the sink for washing dishes, no tea towels for drying dishes, Air con was more like a heater than a cooler and would not go down any lower.

There was a Metro station directly below our hotel which rumbled most of the night as trains passed by.

Anyway, enough about that joint.

We went down the Ramblas for a look with a heap of caution we had heard about pick pockets. No issues at all. We had a look in a market which seemed to be very busy even though they were nearing the end of their day. A lot of little stalls on the middle with mainly tourist products probably well overpriced.

The next day we went up to Placa de Catalunya to catch the Hop on/off bus as I had tickets for Sagrada Familia and one of the routes took us there. The Hop on bus took a little longer than I anticipated so by the time we got there we were about 15-20 minutes late for our time slot which was a bit stressful. It turned out it was not a problem we just ended up in the line like everyone else.

After about 15 min we got in the lift and were whished up to the top of the Passion tower, one of the two that tourists can go up then a bit of time at the top at 112 metres then the 426 spiral steps to the bottom, Not for the claustrophobic at all as there is very little space to pass anyone going down. On the way down every so often there is small windows or vantage points good enough to take photos or get a bit of a view around and at other parts of the cathedral.

From there we spent a bit of time resting in the seats at the bottom inside the cathedral then back on the Hop on bus again for some more rest and sightseeing. We did go past the port where we saw the Americans Cup buildings including the area set aside for Team New Zealand. The bus also took us up past Poble Espanyol which we visited the following day.

The next day we had a booking for Parc Guell. The Hop on/off buses would not get us there in time for our booking so we got a public bus and arrived on time. We were dropped at the top gate as I had been advised as everything from there was down. Anyone starting at the bottom had a hell of a day. Parc Guell was one of Gaudi’s projects and has a lot of his influence, there are even 3 of the 100 houses that were supposed to be built there and as we soon found out you pay extra and book ahead for those also.

Parc Guell was not what i expected, a bit unusual and different but not for me. From there we got the metro train towards Poble Espanyol. We might have got off at the wrong stop as it was still quite a hike to the place. We went in and asked to buy tickets, we were sent to a ticket booth off site. At the time we asked for two audio things for a bit of info on the place. OK we present our tickets and ask again for the audio things and were sent to a third place to pick those up and had to put down a deposit on them. After spending about an hour wandering around and certainly not impressed as a lot of it was closed off due to preperations for a large concert. There was several bar areas being set up and were roped off.

Nice and easy to get a bus to the Airport or so I thought. A ticket machine in the Metro selling tickets, however they were not for the particular Airport Bus we wanted so the driver decided to sell me some more tickets.

We got to the airport and had plenty of time for our Singapore Airlines flight Barcelona to Milan