On the road #1: Barcelona
Barcelona happened to me almost two months ago, now. And, at this point, it feels curious that I'm still doing this post, even with that amount of time gone. Life goes fast nowadays, too fast, and a good and responsible blogger would've posted this a long time ago. But for me, for no reason I'm able to figure out, February (and the most part of March) was a month of blog pause. So lets all just let it be as it is, ok?
Although I haven't so far traveled that much in my entire life, the truth is I have a giant passion for travelling, one I've been allowed to feed mainly during the past couple of years, since I moved out from my parents' house. Until now, and mostly for budget reasons, my main focus was my utterly beautiful Portugal which, despite being a real paradise, is way too finite. True, the amount of things to do in such a small corner of land is incredible , but even though I'm still to explore some places, Barcelona was calling with a mermaid voice which surpassed everything else, and a low-fare airline made possible to follow.
Planning
Before starting into the trip itself, let me explain to you a thing that I learned about myself during all the preparation steps. I'm a planner. Or, at least, I am a planner when there is no one else to plan for me. And as I was going only with my boyfriend let me tell you that yeah, there was no one but me to plan this thing.
So I planned. Not only flights and hotel, but also transportation, tourist cards and a draft of the itinerary, what should we visit, etc etc. You'll probably wonder why in the universe do I need so much planning. Trust me when I tell you that planning is nedded, specially when I go with my boyfriend. This happens for mainly three reasons:
1 - We'll get lost. GPS is our best friend, and even with it we're still perfectly able to get lost more than once. We're that kind of people;
2 - I'm an extraordinarily ambicious traveler. As I don't have that much money to spend, and have no idea when I'll come back, if I can come back at all, I try to know everything in the least amount of time as possible. So far my most ambicious enterprise was trying to visit four portuguese Convents and Monasteries on the coast of Portugal nowadays considered UNESCO World Heritage (
Convento de Cristo - Tomar;
Mosteiro da Batalha;
Mosteiro de Alcobaça and
Palácio Nacional de Mafra) AND the stunning village of
Sintra in only 2 days. Maybe I'll tell you about that in a future poste (Spoiler Alert: The 2 days mission failed! However, we were able to do it in three days, having dinner in Lisboa and knowing the coast with a stop on
Ericeira, so kudos for that!)
3 - Despite point 2, and having to run all day, I hate stress during holidays, and unexpected unpleasant situations are to avoid at all costs! So plan, plan, plan!
I'm still a newbie at booking flights and places to sleep, so I find I can't really give special advice on that matter. I booked the flights directly at the airline's website, and used that world famous website I don't feel like mentioning for... reasons... to book the room. So, any advice you may give me on that matter, I'll take it please!
For the hard task of planning the trip to Barcelona I feel a little more experienced, though. In fact, I dedicated a couple of hours digging through the Internet, until I found
THIS website. It was perfect for me, since it is possible for you to add and take places off the itinerary, change times, duration of visits, etc etc, which means the site makes a suggestion, but whole thing is customizable. It's not super fast, true, and after a while it becomes quite heavy (or my map was just too ambicious... again), but you can e-mail the result to anyone you want, and it's for free!
Another thing I found helpful was starting by trying to find some kind of card that can make you spare time and money by allowing you to use the public transport freely, and maybe get you some discounts. Fortunately Barcelona has the
BCN Card, which fits right into the kind of thing I wanted. The only disadvantadge of the card that you have to consider is the fact that maybe you'll need to adjust the trip to go to some places that you probably wouldn't go, just for the discount. In my case this wasn't a problem, since the card was fit for my needs, and I ended up also getting some luck. But I'll tell you about that later.
All things considered, the only thing I didn't plan carefully was the meals. That turned out ok, but it still robbed us some time, since we ended up browsing every night on a quest for the good places to eat on the area we would be exploring the next day.
The city
So, after all this planning. here I was, early February, six in the morning, hustling through a surprisingly busy airport trying to get to Barcelona with enough energy to tourist all the rest of the day.
On our plan, the first day was the "getting to know the city" day, and we were able to follow at least that. The sweetest thing about Barcelona is that, for some strange reason, it felt a bit like home. The cultural heritage is huge, and though it is a big city if you compare it with my always perfect Porto, the magic of the narrow streets is also there. Walking down Passeig de Gràcia and Las Ramblas with the sun in your face is great, and if you just want to change a little you can always explore the local stores and street markets. There is so much to capture that we eventually found ourselves exploring the city center not only on the first day, but almost every day of the trip, for quite a while. The market of La Boqueria was a special favourite, as we found ourselves wanting to spend all of our money there.
I'm Portuguese, which means that one can't visit place with coast without heading to the nearest beach, whatever the time of the year. The area right next to the sea, where you can see the Mediterranean right in front of you was, therefore, a good choice for a walk, and you can imagine my happiness when, at the afternoon of the third day, I caught myself trying the mediterranean warm waters, even with the constant menace of rain. A beach with warm waters is a luxury to me, a girl used to the icy go-in-there-and-stop-breathing waters of the northern Portuguese coast, so I'm ready to give any kind of water a try, even on Winter, and even if you have to walk a bit to get to the so called beach. It was totally worth it, specially as it was my alternative to the flop that Montjuïc was for us.
After two days on the city I was hoping to go to Montjuïc to see a little bit of green and a great view over the city and perhaps some gardens. Although, and despite the great view, Montjuïc revealed to be nothing more than a desert little hill, with loads of concrete. I'm still to realise if that had something to do with the fact that we didn't go on a guided tour and just... went there. Yeah, we probably missed something, and weren't quite in the mood to visit the Joan Miró Foundation, but still Montjuïc was quite unimpressive and almost a waste of time.
Unimpressive is also my word for La Sagrada Familia. Yes, it is indeed huge and pretty, but the fact that it is being built on a place where there's a MacDonalds on the other side of the street, and buildings all around makes the greatness of the monument go away. You don't have enough space to absorb it, to properly look at it, to contemplate it. You are so close, you can't even quite see the top! There's no way a person can be soaked in the atmosphere of the place, because there is no atmosphere at all. For me it is impossible not to compare it with the great monuments of Portugal (many of which, as I told you before, I visited last year) and find this one lacking. And the cranes are just awful. Therefore, I won't have a Sagrada Familia photo here for you, I'm sorry.
Well, and as we're already talking about specific places, lets talk about...
Things to visit
Lets give those thumbs up to:
Park Guëll
It is certain that the entire Barcelona breathes Gaudi's architecture, as you can see from for example, Casa Batlló, Casa Milà and Casa Amatller but, if you are like me and I can't afford to visit any of those (the façades alone are worth it, and were enough for me), and even if you can, you should visit Park Guëll. I visited it on the morning of my last day in the city and it was totally worth the price. A beautifull location, combined with nature and Gaudi's instantly recognisable art. Not even the amount of tourists and the almost rain were able to ruin the place.
Arc de Triomf and Parc de la Ciutadella
After being in Lisboa last year, I've decided to collect photos of Arches and, most specially, Triumphal Arches of the places I go. The Arc de Triomf, in Barcelona, was my second and I loved the momument and its beautiful colour. It is also at a short distance on foot from the Parc de la Ciutadella, which was my second biggest surprise on the city. The blue and green of fountains and lakes of the Park combined with the white marble made it a wonderful walk and a perfect second morning in the city. And it's free!
Museu d'História de Barcelona (MUHBA)
My absolute love for History, and specially Ancient and Medieval History is a secret to no one. Therefore, (and as BCN card made it free) MUHBA was a mandatory stop. The museum is brilliantly built by levels, and in each level you can find archeologic finding and escavations from the Romans until the XVIII century. With one entrance you can also visit several sites with archeological and historical interest in the city, such as the remaining collumns of an Ancient Roman Temple or the old jewish quarter. This almost transforms the city into a big treasure hunt area for important hidden places.
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| Left: The square and main building of the MUHBA. Right: Roman remains of the place where they used to make the Garum. |
CosmoCaixa
Though I may admit we only visited this museum because it was for free with the BCN card, the fact that is was a science museum and they had an Amazonic Habitat within it convinced us to give it a shot. And despite being so far away from the city center, it was totally worth it. The thing is huge, brilliantly constructed and great for people of all ages. On the same space, and for the insanely low price of 4 euros an entry you are sure to have fun for at least 4 hours. The permanent exhibitions include not only a combination of biological and geological samples (fossils are rock stars in this place) which help to explain the evolution of the species and the History of Mankind, but also real experiments on all the basic principles of Physics and Geology. You can try all the experiments by only touching to activate the mechanisms which trigger the experiment, and that's it! A paradise for any science freak like me. As a Nuclear Medicine Technologist the high point of my visit was the possibility to actually see the particles I know so well.
If you love animals they have several aquariums and an amazonic habitat with a great amount of species, including the well loved Capivara. At the day we went there was also happening a Tech fair, and we where even able to try some drones and 3D printers. Furthermore they have a planetarium that you can visit for an extra 2 euros, and lots of activities for the kids (along with the main exhibitions) are happening all the time.
Unfortunately:
As I said before, La Sagrada Familia and Montjuïc were a total disappointment. So much so, I decided not to pay the money to visit the Cathedral and went to CosmoCaixa instead (best decision, EVER, I tell you). Maybe if I go back to the city, run out of things to do, and have some extra money in my pocket I'll end up visiting it (I seriously doubt it, though). Visiting Montjuïc again would also have to be very well thought, and I would probably do it only by infiltrating into a proper excursion, with a proper guide.
Food
I have a problem with Spain in general, that is based on one simple fact: I absolutely hate paella! So, as most of the restaurants for tourists consisted in paella dishes, fake italian frozen food, or over-priced tapas, the first day was kind of rough on that department, despite the help of the delicious La Boqueria's chocolates and fruit juices. However, after we started with the above described searching strategy of food browsing, I found the most delicious (and affordable) places one can eat.
Ítaka Tabernita
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| The most amazing nachos EVER, and a delicious "Philly Cheese Stake" sandwich. |
Pic-Nic
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| Some Quinoa and Potato Hash Browns and the Huevos Rancheros Picnic specialty. |
Bocca di Bonifaccio
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| Some chips with special sauces, the Milanese Burguer, and the Garibaldi Salad. |
Conclusions
So, after some thought, here are my main conclusions and recomendations about Barcelona:
- It's great, and you should go there;
- It's worth it, even if you go just for a weekend;
- The Cultural part is great;
- Choose wisely where you eat;
- The BCN card is good, but please check your total savings first;
- Walk and/or ride a bike;
- It's better if you go without expectations. Just enjoy every second of it.
Overall, and though I might not be absolutely IN LOVE with it, as I found myself with Vienna almost 6 years ago, I absolutely loved the city and all the atmosphere, and I'll totally go back there if I can.
