Spent the weekend in Bar-thay-lona. Spell it: Barçelona. The "ç" makes all the difference.
Barçelona is in Catalanya, an independant state within Spain and actually has it's own hybrid Spanish language. They use the "ç" quite a bit, and it is just the tip of many differences between the languages (but for the amateur Spanish speaker, an easily noticable difference).
Beautiful city only 1:45 hours from London via Easy Jet our local low-cost airline (like a Southwest Airlines, but less perky and with less perks if that is possible). Fun fact: Cass Business School alumnus is the founder of the airline...Sir Stelios.
Anywho... Got into Barçelona late. Hotel was Vincci Arena near Plaça de Espanya a huge and impressive plaza close to where the Olympics were held in 1992. Grabbed some snacks, a late night paella and a couple draught San Miguel's at the corner paella joint, at around 11:30pm.
We opted to call it a night early so we could be in 100% MAX tourista mode the following day, which we were...
Poble Espanya - The National Gallery (views from)...
Rode the cable cars in Montejuic Park....
Saw the olympic arena....
That evening we rode around on the "Bus Turistic" - a sightseeing bus that stops at all the hot spots. We saw the Port Olympico where the olympic athletes were housed and now they are luxury apartments, the Christopher Columbus statue that points away from America (we also saw the Placa del Rei where he was greeted by the King after coming back from America) and Placa Cataluyna where the old city meets the new. We also found our new favorite snack - churros (like fried dough) dipped in hot chocolate. Dinner with Andrew, then got Katie after she landed and headed out to grab some more cervezas at a few bars in the Bourne Plaza.
Saturday morning we were up sightseeing again. This time we had a plan and saw....
La Pedrera - one of Gaudi's most famous buildings (designed as an apartment building in 1905. can you picture this in 1905?)
La Sagrada Familia - Gaudi's last work. Amazing. Its been under construction for 120 years and they expect to have it finished in 2025! We took the lift to one of the top towers and then climbed down over 250 narrow, windy stairs to get back down.
And Park Guell, again by Gaudi. It overlooks the city and the bay. We shared a bottle of wine and watched the sunset... picture perfect.
Dinner on Saturday was at a tapas restaurant called La Cerveseria Catalanya. It was the best food we've had since I've been in Europe. And such a bargain in euros! We got there at 10:30 (the Spanish eat soo late) and sat down to eat at midnight. The place was packed up until 2 am when we left. We drank sangria and ordered two full rounds of tapas - four cheeses, cured ham, tortilla espanola and finished with crema de catalanya (like creme brulee but better).
Up early and back to rainy London on Sunday and getting ready for work/school.
Have some pumpkin pie for us on Thanksgiving!!!
P.S. Can you tell Bobby and I each wrote half of this one?
1 comment:
I can SO tell each of you wrote half of that!! I was thinling that in head before I read it...hahah :)
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