Buenas Dias!

Greetings from sunny Catalonia, Spain! Since we´ve had two stints in Barcelona, one before Sitges and one after, I´m going to condense them both into this post.

Our first hostel was just off of La Rambla, a long stretch of tree-lined walkway that rests between two traffic lanes. La Rambla is a popular tourist spot and has plenty of attractions along it like shops, cafes, buskers, some museums, etc. It was a nice place to start in Barcelona.

There are a lot of statue-people along this strip.
Also along La Rambla is the St. Josep la Bouqueria, an amazing marketplace - I haven´t ever seen displays so beautiful. Jules surprised me with some chocolates from there which were de-lish.


It´s still a happening place in the night.

There are scooters and mopeds everywhere.

The Sagrada Familia. This church has been under construction since 1882. Even with the cranes towering over, it was still a really stunning sight to see poking out of the trees when I wasn´t expecting it (which I wasn´t on my bus tour). Apparently this was Gaudi´s passion which he worked on for over 40 years knowing that he would never see it´s completion during his lifetime. Admission fees go towards its construction.
The more modern side of the Sagrada.
Jules and I also took a day to wander around the Passeig de Gracia, a street with a lot of Gaudi architecture and design. Below is La Predrera, known for it´s warped iron balconies.
A highlight of Barcelona for me was definitely my trip to Gaudi´s Park Guell, more north in the city. It´s a multi-leveled park that has Gaudi designed buildings and elements like benches and statues interspersed within it.

The park is on a hill in Barcelona, with a great view of the city and the Mediterranean.
This was my favourite part of the park - a grand area of columns underneath a park platform. the ceilings were all mosaic, with extra-detailed pieces dispersed throughout.




Everywhere you walked in the park there were buskers and musicians.

During my walk to Park Guell I saw this grafitti. While the second biggest city in Spain, Barcelona is also the capital city of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia (or Catalunya). We had a Sitges resident explain Catalonia´s relationship with Spain as sort of similar to Quebec´s relationship with Canada. Catalonia´s official languages are Catalan, Aranese, and Spanish.

When Jules and I aren´t busy getting lost in the city, I do take the time to appreciate that Barcelona has some great design elements going on. Many of the major streets are set up similarly to this, with either lane of traffic alongside a pedestrian strip in the middle. They are also big on lining streets and pedestrian walkways with lots of greenery.

The other striking thing about the streets are that nearly all the intersections look like this - with the very corners of the blocks "cut off". It´s sort of hard to tell in these pictures what I mean, but the intersections are more like octagons rather than squares. Apparently this was originally done for greater visibility for cars to turn, but it seems like now it´s more about added parking space.

The metro system in Barcelona is vast and reminds me of London´s in scale and design. It´s pretty simple to use once you understand it´s system. The metro also has neat design elements that add to the experience though, like their handpoles. Why have one, when you can have three at once? It may seem like a trivial thing, but it just makes so much sense!
You can also read an e-book while on your journey. That´s just plain nice.
And, the winner is.... How handy is this panel? It tells you where you are, what direction you´re going, and what stops are along the line.
Since we´ve learned that shopping at grocery stores is cost effective ;) we eat breakfasts like this.
And lunches like this. Whoever thought France was the land of the baguette sandwich was wrong, it´s Barcelona - they´re everywhere!
Check out this gelato!

ahh... the Spanish. Do you think this cover could make it in North America?

Oink
All in all, it´s been sensory overload in Barcelona. It is beautiful, packed full with public art, layers of old and new buildings, and bussling areas. Though, it can feel too big sometimes. There are so many sections to visit, and from one area to the next is not always very walkable. If you don´t plan out exactly what you want to do in the day, you can feel you´ve wasted your time not seeing much. Also an issue was a lack of English - both signs and speakers. I don´t mean to sound like a typical english-speaking tourist but there is a lot less english that we had imagined here. It just makes ordering food, following signs, asking for directions etc much more difficult. Also confusing is that the streets are laid out as grids in some sections, and not in others, which can make following maps hard for map-challenged people like ourselves. The experience has been awesome though, and we´ve even learned a bit of Spanish!

Until next time, adios!