A stay-at-home day to ready ourselves for going to Barcelona the next day. Lots of washing and folding, packing and thinking and unpacking again, until we were sure we had the bare minimum on which we could manage without offending those around us! Finally we had pared it down to a small suitcase and three backpacks between the four of us., so we went off to bed with our alarm clocks set for 6.30 the next morning. Probably rather earlier than necessary but since we all have this thing about not getting to airports late, we decided to err on the side of early. Anyway there were all sorts of unknowns to factor in like, how long it would take to get to the airport at about 8 in the morning; what sort of traffic jams we would encounter; how long it would take to sort out the paperwork when we got to the ‘Park and Fly’ long stay car park, and how long it would take for them to get us back to the terminal. In the end we discovered that there was almost no traffic at that time of the morning; there were no traffic jams; the paperwork took only a few minutes although we did discover later that Neels had become Mr Schengen (taken off his visa) and that they didn’t have an arrangement with a Mr Ferreira! So we ended up at the check in desk at 8.30 for our flight which left at 11. Rather early, you may think. Imagine our shock when we discovered that the clocks had been changed at midnight the night before and the real time was 7.30!!! Oh well………….at least we were not late for the plane.
Thirty minutes after taking off we had arrived and were soon on an Aerobus which whisked us into the centre of the city. From there it was a short stroll down the most famous of all Barcelona’s streets – the La Rambla – to our hotel. Cheap and cheerful at E55 for two people including breakfast, it is wonderfully situated on the corner of La Rambla and one of the side streets, and the breakfast room had a huge picture window overlooking the ‘action’. For those of you who are not familiar with La Rambla, let me try to describe it to you. The whole area is about a kilometer long ; a wide road with traffic on either side and a wide pedestrian area up the middle. On either side of the pedestrian area are stalls, but not in a continuous line, and various ‘characters’. I don’t know how else to describe them. There was one dressed as a most beautiful bronze angel who stayed perfectly still unless money was thrown into her collection box. Another two were dressed up as dragons – a black one and a silver one – who delighted in grabbing at people as they went past, mainly the young girls who would give a satisfying scream, but who would then enfold their ’prey’ in their wings, very gently, to allow photographs to be taken. There was a Charlie Chaplin look-alike; a Roman legionnaire; a matador; an Arab sheik and quite a few scary ones like Dracula or people who popped out of coffins as you walked past. Strangely there were no musicians of any sort. Then there were guys strolling up and down with little whistles in their mouths that made a noise like bird calls. Of the stalls, most were souvenir sellers with the usual postcards and fridge magnets, T-shirts and dishcloths, necklaces of various sorts and bracelets and a great variety of other things. Over the next three days we spent many hours rambling up the Rambla (or down) looking at everything there was to see. That wasn’t all, though. On our first full day there, we caught an open-top hop-on-hop-off bus to be taken around the city. The bus does two different routes and our ticket allowed us to get on and off at the various stops and to use it on two different days too. It was brilliant.
On the first day we went past the Sagrada Familia which, to all the uninitiated, is the famous unfinished cathedral designed by Gaudi, so decided to hop off and go and visit it. The queue to get in was about 100 meters long but was moving quite fast so we only had to wait for about 20 minutes. I have to admit to being very skeptical about the place, and after seeing it, I still don’t think it is my idea of a church, but I have to admire his visions and designs, and the application of both. At the moment, both the outside and the interior of the church is festooned with cranes and scaffolding, and there is much shouting and banging going on, but it is still possible to get an idea of what the finished building will look like and I think it will be impressive, to say the least.
Apart from this stop, we didn’t really get off at any other places, being content to ride along on the top of the double-decker bus, listening to the commentary provided. When we completed our circular tour, we made a brief stop at a huge departmental store called El Corte Ingles, but didn’t stay long. The brand names advertised around the walls of the interior were enough to make us cringe – names like Gucci, Yves St. Laurent, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, Diesel, Zara, Benetton and the like. The perfumed air in the shop just made you so aware of how much everything would cost, that we scurried out again like the proverbial country mice.
Our evening meal that night was enjoyed at one of the open-air restaurants in the Rambla, watching all the people passing by and the general buzz and hum of activity.
The next day, we went out after breakfast and explored some of the narrow twisting streets of the old city, discovering tiny shops wedged into spaces the size of our kitchen; amazing murals on the walls of seemingly ancient buildings; wonderful carvings high up on walls, and others on doors. And then, when we had walked ourselves weary, we went back to the hotel, checked out and put our luggage into their safe storage for collection later and went off to do the second circuit of the town. The day was less warm than the day before and we got a bit blown around on top of the bus, but we enjoyed it immensely and saw the main sights.
At about 5 o’clock, we collected our luggage and walked up the Rambla for the last time to catch our Aerobus back to the airport and so back to Palma.
Barcelona was an experience which I will always remember for it’s sights and sounds; it’s vibrancy and life, and it was a wonderful place to celebrate my birthday.
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