Monday, 16 October 2006
Barcelona - October 13,14,15 2006
Barcelona is on the Mediterranean coast and is by far, our favourite city in Spain. It’s also the capital of Catalonia….a part of Spain, and the people tend to consider themselves to be Catalonian first and Spanish second. After travelling through the rest of Spain and seeing how disorganised the rest of Spain is, I can’t blame them for wanting to be a separate nation!
The rest of Spain has an absolutely ridiculous siesta where the whole place literally closes down. Next to nothing remains open. In lieu of this, the restaurants open late with the norm being to eat at around 10pm, which seems weird to us but good luck to 'em I guess. When do they sleep? No wonder so many people have bags under their eyes. That said, whole families, it seems, go out for an evening meal from the grandparents to the grandchildren and this clearly creates a good atmosphere.
Barcelona didn’t seem too concerned with the siesta situation and it didn’t really close down in the middle of the day…or at least, not that we noticed. It did stay open late, which was good as the city felt quite safe to walk around, despite reports to the contrary prior to travelling there.
There is a massive avenue called Las Ramblas, where there are loads of shops, people (LOADS) and various street performers, including a young bloke who was making an absolute mint by posing with people for photos, dressed as world footballer of the year, Ronaldinho, who plays for Barcelona. Normally, this wouldn’t be funny, but Ronaldinho has massive teeth so just before the photo is taken, the bloke smiles and you can see these massively oversized false teeth. Was very good and as I say, he was making a fortune!
We tended to steer away from Las Ramblas as there were just so many people and most of the shops were stocked with tourist tat….Instead, we focused on simply enjoying the city by walking around, (heaps) and we also were absolutely fascinated by the architecture of a man called Antoni Gaudi.
Let me tell you, this architecture has to be seen to be believed….absolutely phenomenal. Mightn’t be everyone’s cuppa tea but impressive it is.
He designed loads of buildings in Barcelona, where he lived, including a famous (unfinished) church called Sagrada Familia (we stayed nearby) and various other buildings the names of which I cannot recall.
His designs are not traditional in any way. Instead, he took inspiration from nature and designed many aspects of his buildings and interiors in shapes such as waves, curves like leaves, trees, skeletons and snail shells. It truly is incredible and was a major highlight of our visit.
We also visited a wonderful concert hall, alas, only a tourist visit rather than to see a show. This building also had amazing architecture with superb tiled columns.
Barcelona has a real buzz and is many people’s favourite city in the world.
We enjoyed it and would definitely revisit but it still can’t compete with Paris, New York, London and maybe even Sydney for mine. But a great city nonetheless and well worth a visit!