Barcelona

We've only heard good reports on Barcelona. Everyone who's been there has told us that it's a great city with lots of energy. We finally got the chance to see for ourselves, and we spent a weekend exploring.

We started with a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter, which took us through a few churches, the Cathedral, and the narrow streets of the oldest part of the city. I then dragged Jacks to an essential spanish experince - a Tapas Bar. I'd chosen a local hangout, called Bar Celta, famous for the Galician classic of boiled octopus with paprika and olive oil. I also tried the razorfish, which is a cross between a mussel and an oyster, a long skinny shell, which holds a tube like piece of meat, which was surprisingly good, especially when washed down with a glass or 2 of Cava.

Antoni Gaudi is a famous architect who decorated much of Barcelona (and is known to the spanish as God's architect). After walking through Barcelonata (the beach area), we decided to look at some of his works. We started at Park Guell, which is a big piece of both natural and landscaped park, overlooking the city, and hosting a variety of of Gaudi's buildings, statues and weird designs. We walked down to the Sagrada Familia, without doubt Barcelona's most famous landmark. It's a massive cathedral, unlike anything we've ever seen, and what makes it even more interesting is that it is still being built.

I won't descibe La Rita, the restaurant we visited for dinner, in a any detail. I will say, for those of you who plan on visiting, it is fantastically good value and it serves up gourmet food to a pack of excitable spaniards. We arrived at the place to find that we had to wait for a table. A spanish couple arrived after us, and while bypassing the line, they rattled off something in the local lingo (probably 'are you waiting for a table'). I answered, 'no, I'm just standing farting by the door'.

We'd really enjoyed our saturday in the city, but felt that on sunday we wanted to get away from the noise (and the people), so we caught a train to Monserrat, 1 hour north-west. At the main train station, we then jump on a smaller train, and travelled up the rack railway to Monserrat (a monestary, with a church, a few hotels and a couple of restaurants). We caught a funicular further up the mountain, and from there we walked for around 2 and a half hours up the summit of St. Geroni, and then back to the monestary. The scenery was truly spectacular, with rounded limestone peaks rising up out landscape like fat fingers reaching into the blue sky. The peace and serenity of the mountain was shattered on our return into the monestary, which sounded like it was hosting an international football match. We arrived back to find that it was a hugely popular sunday afternoon venue for a spanish family outing (or invasion!). We got away as quick as we could, and made our way back into Barcelona.

The last adventure of our weekend was a wander down La Ramblas, a cross between a highstreet, a flea-market, and an open-air theatre. I would aggree with all the comments I've ever heard about Barcelona. It's a great city, with a boisterous vibe, but the locals need a serious lesson in etiquette, and the lingering smell of pee becomes a bit too much after 2 days.