Hello Barcelona!...hello?! After checking into our studio apartment we realise arriving on a Sunday wasn't such a good idea, where is everyone? At least the local shop sells sangria, hurrah! Pasta in tomato sauce for tea with sangria on the terrace.
In the morning we decide to go to Park Guell to see some Gaudi designs, its a pretty and unusual park with great views of Barcelona but we've never seen so many people squeezed into one place before. The weirdest thing was that after we got past the famous mosaic salamander there were so many less people, why did no-one else want to see such a beautiful place? We could see a high hill with a cross at the top for all of our walk round so thought "that's going to be a top place to see the city". We were kind of right, once we managed to squeeze onto a tiny plateau with 20 other people including a couple intent on driving everyone else off by continually snogging (no it wasn't us!). We finally see why locals despise tourists in some places! We visit the cathedral and walk down a bit of La Rambla, see the food market but when Christine spots skinned lamb's heads we make a quick exit.
The next day we walk around Catalunya square where Christine faced her fear of pigeons, why are there so many?? Heading to the Segreda Familia we're glad we've pre-booked as the queue is huge. It's a beautiful cathedral designed by Gaudi. Lots of towers and intricate carvings. There were beautiful stained glass windows and the afternoon sun pouring through them made the floor light up with colour. It was definitely the grandest cathedral we've ever seen but we're still not convinced it was worth so much to get in. We take a lift to the top of one tower to see impressive views of Barcelona and James faces the fear of heights he didn't know he had once again. Back down on the ground and we find the old school that Gaudi had built for the children of the workers who were originally building the cathedral and James goes all teacher, yawn! :-)
La Rambla caught our eye for our evening meal but after a greasy deep fried tapas starter and a few mouthfuls of a bad pizza James throws up and refuses to pay full price. A big scene gets us thrown out but with an £11 discount, win (kinda). We know that everyone says not to bother eating there but we were just too tired to walk down more side streets hoping to stumble across a gem.
A trip to Labyrinth park today which was nice and peaceful apart from the class of photography students who seemed to have been told to take the most boring pictures they could find...click, here's a wall, click, here's a hedge, click, here's some water. We used our cameras taking photos of all the turtles we kept finding! We ventured into the labryrinth and found the middle in about 30 seconds. Booo. At least getting out was a lot harder, I think we tried every path before we made it! We spent the afternoon having another little wander round the city trying to spot some more of Gaudi's buildings and managed to find some nice peaceful squares away from the herds of tourists. Pretty buildings.
SCIENCE MUSEUM!! By far the best part of Barcelona for us. We both spent the day running around like excited kids and playing with everything we could find. The museum has a replica of a rainforest so you can walk around and see what lives above and below the water in the rainforest. It even rained in there! Elvis the pig got pecked by a bird and the Capybara came over to say hello to James. We spent ages in this part but still got to see most of the other exhibits in the museum too. Its brilliant and we'd definitely recommend it. Evening time and we find some cool bars, so cool that we don't leave until late and miss the last metro. We get caught in a rainstorm and it feels wonderful.
Our last day in Barcelona and there's a thunderstorm. Watching the lightning right above us is amazing. We make it out in time to watch the magic fountains of Montujic, fountains that change colour and 'dance' to the music that is played. Time for tapas and although we can't read much of the menu we pick some nice dishes. We decide to pick some more and a plate of tripe turns up, wonderful. James watches in horror as Christine puts a bit in her mouth and chews...and chews before finally spitting it out. "Tripe is a type of fish isn't it?" "No Christine its intestines". BLURGHHH!! Luckily Christine remembers the Mr Bean steak tartar episode and manages to hide enough of it so the waiter doesn't see how dumb we are.
Goodbye Barcelona!
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