The lights of Barcelona

I arrived in the early evening on the plane from Rome and headed straight to the hostel. There are regular buses to the city from directly out the front of the airport and they are around 4 euros. I decided to walk to the hostel from the bus station as it seemed easier than trying to get into the crowded metro with my bags on. There are always heaps of people about in Spain in the evenings so it is safe enough to wander around on the main streets. The city looks lovely at the moment because they have just put all the Christmas lights up and it is all sparkly. It is definitely a city that looks better at night at the moment. I walked down La Rambla and then turned off into one of the side streets that seemed to be the place to come if you want Indian take-away. I got to the hostel at about 8pm and unfortunately just as 5 other people arrived.

I stayed at Mambo Tango Backpackers for the first night in Barcelona. It is a relatively new hostel that has a very nice policy on drunk annoying people (evict them!). It is in a really good position and while the rooms are a little small they were comfy enough and there was a good living space. After so many busy days in Rome, I headed straight to bed and had a really good night's sleep. Breakfast in the morning was okay. Cornflakes, toast (cold), jam and coffee. I headed out into town at about 10.30am (Barcelona is not a town for early risers like me) and did a bit of a circuit of the city to see some of the highlights. I walked down the main street near the hostel to the waterfront and came out near the Monument to Columbus. It is this huge thing with ships and lions and a giant columbus and a column and well a bit of everything. There is even a lift inside that takes you to the top and a view over the harbour. It wasn't open yet though so I didn't go in. It even has some great friezes and statues of the monks converting the natives that I feel that some South Americans might disagree with. No statues of the natives dying of smallpox though!

There are some really impressive old buildings along the waterfront area and several of them are now part of the Maritime Museum. I wandered along the promenade on the harbour and it was even warm enough to just be in a t-shirt while I was in the sun. At the end of the promenade, I headed up a couple of streets and continued along to the City Park. It is quite large and contains a church, the parliament of Catalunya, a museum and a zoo. It also has room for a small lake and several large fountains. It is quite pretty and a nice place to sit around on a sunny day. It even has a lifesized mammoth. I'm not exactly sure why as the sign is in Spanish and I didn't think that they had mammoths this far south but maybe I'm wrong.

At the northern end of the park, is an avenue with the Arc de Triomf which is a large brick red gate. It is really quite attractive and there are several other nice buildings in the avenue leading up to it. From there I headed into the maze of streets in La Ribera. I stumbled upon a cute little Gothic church called St Pere de les Puelles in a little square. It has a very plain interior and some nice frescos over the altars. There is a small section that is very old and shows some of the door decorations before a section of the church was altered into a more modern style. I continued to wander the streets and eventually arrived at the Palau de la Musica which is a very impressive building with lots of mosaics on the outside. It is one of the best preserved Modernista buildings in Barcelona. They were scrubbing the tiles on the outside while I was there. It must get really dirty from all the traffic.

I then headed down Via Laietana to find the flat that Miles had rented for the weekend, so that I wasn't searching for it when I had all my stuff. It is a really lovely long street with lots of fancy buildings on both sides. It seems to be more of a commercial street than La Rambla with lots of banks and other companies. There is an organic supermarket about halfway down the street by the way, where vegetarians will find it easy (though not cheap) to stock up on supplies. I stopped and grabbed some fruit bread because I haven't had any in a very long time and I miss it.

I found the flat and turned off the main street to the Church of Santa Maria del Mar. It was built in the 14th century and has survived largely unchanged since then. It is gothic in style with high arches and lots of space. It has some really lovely stained glass windows. The little side chapels contain just small statues for the most part. There are only a couple that have full altars. In front of each chapel is a table covered in candles. In Spain they have candles that are in little red plastic containers which gives a really lovely light. I lit a candle for Nan here in front of the statue of St George who it turns out is the patron saint of Catalunya as well (he really is the busiest of the saints).

I walked back out to the main street and up to the Cathedral which is only 5 minutes away. The front is covered in scaffolding at the moment so you can't see any of the facade. The cathedral is part of a complex of buildings that are owned by the church (or used to be) which takes up several blocks. It also incorporates parts of the old Roman fortifications. I didn't get to see all of the inside because of mass (or at least that is what I think the man was telling me). It is an impressive building but has had more recent changes. The side chapels are mostly baroque and very OTT when compared with the simple lines of the gothic building.

I was getting hungry so I headed across town to one of the restaurants recommended in the LP. It is called Organic and was really really good vegetarian food. For 10 euros you get the menu of the day which includes soup, the salad bar (with delicious salads as well as plain vegies for you to make your own), a hot main course from a choice of 4 or 5 and a dessert. They have several choices for vegans as well which is a rare thing in Spain. I was completely stuffed by the time I finished but it was all so good, I just couldn't help it.

After lunch, I headed across La Rambla again to go and see the Church of Santa Maria del Pi but it was closed for the afternoon. You can see the enormous rose window from the outside though so I didn't bother going back. I wandered around the collection of Roman ruins, many of which have been incorporated into other buildings. The Roman pillars were closed unfortunately (they are inside one of the church offices so have set opening hours).

At 3pm I headed back to the hostel and collected my bags to take them to the flat. I had to ring the people and let them know what time to meet me with the keys and this was a definite hassle. I rang the number from my mobile thinking that it would take less than a minute but the people initially said that there was no booking and that the flat that I had mentioned was in Lisbon not Barcelona. I had to check my email and try to find the booking number only to be told that the service on the internet uses a different booking number to the people with the keys so it was useless anyway. Finally after spelling my name several times he managed to find it and agreed to meet me in 20 minutes. He was definitely impatient because I was three minutes late and he was already trying to ring someone to find out if I was coming (like I wouldn't be!). The apartment was really nice though and I left my stuff and headed to the supermarket to get some stuff for dinner. There are several small supermarkets in the little streets to the south of the cathedral and they all sell a similar range. I've been told that there is a larger one up near Placa Catalunya as well.

I then enjoyed what was pretty much the best feature of the flat, the washing machine and dryer. I hadn't washed my clothes in a machine in quite a while so it was really nice to go to bed in clean PJs. A lot of the hostels in Italy charged 8 euros a load and I felt that was a bit steep given the rooms in dorms were 30 euros a lot of the time anyway.

Miles and Lauren got to the flat just before 11pm and headed out for some tapas at one of the many bars just around the corner near the Church of Santa Maria del Mar. I would have liked to join them but was just too tired to get dressed again and head out.

The next morning, I headed out at about 8.30 to try and find some stuff for breakfast. Pretty much nothing was open except for coffee shops and one bakery. So I got some croissants and headed back to the flat. By the time that Miles and Lauren got out of bed though, the supermarkets were open and I headed out for some more stuff. The little place next to the flat is a Latino supermarket and sells some of the weirdest stuff that I have ever seen. Most of the things that I have seen in shops during this trip I can at least have a stab at identifying but there were things in this shop that I couldn't even classify as animal or vegetable. So I headed into the streets a bit further and found one that sold normal food and even had 100% juice (a rarity it seems in Spain). For a country that grows so much fruit you would think that juice would be easier to procure.

After breakfast we headed out into town to meet a friend who is studying in Barcelona at the moment. We met Pete at the Market which is just off La Rambla. There are many markets in the city but this is the biggest and the most popular with tourists. It sells fruit, vegies, fish, meat (including rabbits with their innards on show) and spices. It also sells ham that is over 100 euros per kilo. It would want to be damn good. The dog definitely wouldn't be getting any. We wandered around there for a bit and then headed to a nearby cafe for a drink. Pete warned us that service, especially for outside tables can be slow in Barcelona, but it was actually not bad. No hot chocolate though!

After our break, we met up with a few other people who are studying architecture with Pete and went to see one of the Gaudi apartments. We initially were going to go to Casa Battlo which is closer to the main section of town but it is 16.50 to get in which is a little steep so we just had a look at the outside of that one and headed further up the street to La Pedrera which is only 8 euros and much better value. It is quite a nice walk up the street as it has lots of fancy buildings and expensive shops.

La Pedrera was built in the early 20th century and has a fairly plain facade which is mostly grey. It is definitely not as colourful as some of his other works. Several sections of the building are open to visitors: the courtyard, the roof, one apartment that is furnished and two exhibition spaces.

The roof is spectacular and we were lucky enough to have perfect weather to go up there. It is six storeys up so has really good views over the rest of the city. The roof is rippled and has steps all over it so that you can walk around. The chimneys and airvents are covered with giant sculptures that remind me of Roman soldiers. The ones that can be seen from the street are then covered in tiles while the rest are left plain.

The space under the roof has an exhibition about Gaudi and his architectural methods. It also has lots of models of the apartment. It has a giant squiggly roof that reminds me of a snake because it has supporting ribs. Gaudi was quite radical in the world of architecture and very into organic shapes and replicating nature.

The next floor down has an apartment with furniture from the time in it. The apartments were big as they have the entire floor to themselves with a large hole in the middle looking into the courtyard and making the whole place much lighter. The apartment interior is more conservative than the rest of the building as it had to be livable and have furniture fit into it.

There is another exhibition space downstairs that is very plain and is actually free to enter. It currently has an exhibition of Venetian art so we had a quick look around and then headed outside to wait for the others to finish in the exhibition upstairs (being architects, they were paying more attention than the rest of us).

We walked back down the street into the main city and ended up in Av del Portal del'Angelo where there is currently a little market of local produce. One of the guys asked a stall holder about it and they said that the market is on just once a year for four days at the end of November/beginning of December. They were selling lots of cheese, breads, meats and sweets. Pete bought us some sweet bread that is a local favourite. It tastes like foccacia only with sugar on the top. It is a little sickly but fine if you share it around.

We then went to the boys favourite sandwich bar in the city. It is called Conesa and is on St Jaume square. It always has a queue outside and there is almost no room to stand inside to eat but it was good. They serve bocadillos which are the local version of a toasted sandwich and have a large range of fillings. They are fresh and they are hot and only 3-4 euros each which is pretty good value.

After our sandwiches (and some beers) we headed back to La Rambla and went to an exhibition on photojournalism that is running for free in one of the galleries. It is only small but has some very interesting photos of recent Barcelona history. Outside in a large glass case are some dolls from one of the Barcelonian festivals. They are brought out for the parade each year. They were built in the 19th century and look scarily like some of the characters from the most recent Shrek movie.

After that, the boys decided that it was time for beer again and we headed to one of their favourite bars in Joaquin Costa St. It has comfy couches which is a really good start at the end of a long walk. The boys then headed off to Portuguese night at their uni and we headed back to the flat via the supermarket. Lots of the supermarkets (and indeed all the shops) don't open on Sundays at all so you need to stock up on Saturday or go hungry. Miles and I burnt my photos off the iPod onto DVDs and then we headed out for tapas at about 10.30pm (most places don't open until 10 and close at about 1am). I had a bit of bad luck ordering with the tapas as everything I ordered seemed to have tuna in it (if you don't eat fish, don't order the rice salad because it has more tuna than rice). Dessert was really good though as I had crema catalan which is the local custard (always a good start).

I got up early the next morning despite only 5 hours sleep and put some photos into the blog. Miles and Lauren had a very late start and it was nearly midday when we had breakfast. Miles then returned to bed for the rest of the day and Lauren and I headed out to La Sagrada Familia which is one of the biggest tourist sites in Barcelona. It is a couple of metro stops from the city and is the modern Gaudi cathedral. It is still being built so the inside and the outside is covered in scaffolding (not that much different from the old churches). Gaudi realised that it was going to take over a century to build using the old techniques and left detailed plans and models for the architects that followed him. It is being built just with private donations (and the money from the visitors) so financing slows it down too. They think that they will have it completed in another 20 years.

The cathedral is huge even with scaffolding filling much of the interior and it will be spectacular when it is completed. The windows are lovely and the pillars in the main section of the church look like trees at the top. They have all been made out of different coloured stone each with different strengths. The nativity facade is the most detailed section and it doesn't come out well in photos because it is so busy. There are three doors: faith, hope and charity, all covered in statues. He used real people for his models and made plaster face masks to use for his carvings.

The towers of the church are really tall and there is still one to be built that will have a giant crucifix on it and will be the tallest. The tops of the spires are covered in Venetian glass which is really shiny and cleans itself in the rain which is clever. You can catch a lift up into the towers for 2 euros but it involves standing in a queue for at least an hour which we didn't have time (or the inclination) to do. Underneath the church are the workshops and a small museum which explains some of Gaudi's plans for th building and has photos of it at various stages. It is definitely worth getting the audioguide for the visit as there aren't that many signs and the guide tells you a lot about the building and it's history.

Out the front is a small school that is now used as an educational centre. It was built by Gaudi for the workers' children as the church was initially so far out of town. It is hard to believe now that it was in a field in the middle of nowhere when construction began. We headed back into town on the metro and went to the market again for Lauren to buy some cheese and aioli to take back to London. We then met Miles and went for lunch at the sandwich place again before they headed out to the airport in a taxi (there is a rank in St Jaume Square). I headed back to the flat and had a hot bath and then lounged around for the rest of the evening. The next morning was an early start to check out of the apartment though, I ended up missing my bus because the girl who came to collect the keys was a few minutes late. I caught the later one after sitting for an hour or so in the bus station (which is heated to about 40 degrees despite the fact that it isn't that cold outside) and headed onto Valencia.