Barcelona Pictures

NOTE: As usual, the blog defeats me, so there are 3 postings about Barcelona - in reverse order. Read the 3rd one first for a good overview!

As you might imagine, our favorite spots were on the harbor - this is a huge international port and has been extensively developed over hundreds of years - most recently including for the 1992 Olympics, and the fancy, spectacular Mare Magnum shopping area/tourist trap (but a nice one!). One of our highlights was taking a boat tour out of the harbor into the Mediterranean - I (mfe) was very awed by actually being on the Med - and it is beautiful. Shots are scenic, and include the Christopher Columbus statue (silhouette), a shot of the shipping containers being loaded (gave us a hint of how our box might have been lost!), and the 2 towers of Port Olympic. In one of them there is a casino, which we visited, but didn't partake! We were going to eat dinner there, but restaurants opened at 9:30 - too late for us! We did adjust to lunch 2-4 (even later and longer than Ireland!). Many businesses close for that time, so are open 10-2 and 4-7 or 8. It is a pretty leisurely culture, which was nice.

Barcelona Pictures

On the left a beautiful street scene in the very old Gothic area of town center. Above is an example of graffiti. There was graffiti everywhere, including on both sides of the track on our 20 minute train ride to/from Montmelo. It was all very colorful and artistic, more part of the scenery than vandalism!




The 3 below are examples of Guadi's work, which is emblematic of Barcelona
first a building in Guell park; second a lamp post, one of many on the street where there are several buildings which he designed, as well as paving and other touches; and, last, a building in town centre.




















These next 3 are just "plain old" views in the city - breathtaking
























And the last one is an example of the Christmas lights that were up - there were lots and they were really beautiful.

Barcelona Pictures

Trip to Barcelona, Spain. 2/12/06-3/1/07: We were scheduled to fly in to Girona, but were diverted by fog to Perpignan, France and coached back to Girona (about 1 1/2 hours). Then we took a bus to Barcelona City Centre (about 1 hr), took Metro and trains to our to Montmelo, north of Barcelona. It was a long walk to our hotel, pulling our bags, not knowing where we were going, and speaking no Spanish. However, we eventually made it, totally exhausted. The hotel was a bit further out than anticipated, but we liked it really well. The room was bare-bones, but the people were great, and it had a nice little restaurant, where we ate that first night and 2 other nights. Montmelo as a pretty little country town and we liked it. We got pretty good at walking to the train, then taking the train to Barcelona (only about 20 minutes) and then the metro all over the city - as you know we like using public transportation.

In the picture above, be sure and click on it to enlarge it so you can read the black sign in lower right - we did not take offense!

On Friday and Saturdy, we rode Bus Turistica - see picture. These are ubiquitous in Barcelona - one runs on one of 2 routes, both directions, every 15 minutes! It is a great deal, because it is "hop on hop off" - you get an overview of the city and can get off anywhere you want. They also gave us some pretty good discount coupons, so we thought this was a good deal. Over the course of the days we toured grounds of several museums, including the huge and beautiful Museum of Art - just didn't have time to do it justice. We did go to the Museu d'Historia de Catalunya housed in the old general warehouse of the harbour and to the Maritime Museum - both very interesting. We did lots of walking and enjoying architecture and especially the harbor.

This blog posting is organized into 3 sections - these pictures are sort of a general overview of the trip. Then there is one on architecture, which is a major theme of the city, and one on the harbor, which was of course one of our favorite spots.

Here you see a couple of our personal favorites - the owner/waitress at the Central Cafe on the square in Montmelo. We stopped in there on Friday evening - no one spoke any English, and as we looked over the menu, the man (owner/chef/barkeep) brought out examples of what each dish was. They were really nice and we had a good dinner. One customer spoke a little English and helped out, too. Also, here, a panoramic view (there were many, as there are mountains all around the city) and a shot of Bus Turistica. Here's one picture of a "living statue" on La Rambla - the pedestrian walking mall through City Centre. There were all kinds of vendors, thousands of people, and these guys doing their "statue art" and getting donations if you had your picture made with them. We went to the historic Maritime Museum - note the arches - it is in a huge ancient ship-building structure. And finally, on this page, Parc Guell - this was planned by Gaudi (famous architect, more on the next page) as a residential garden for his Patron, Guell - that never worked out and it was donated to the City and is a beautiful, huge park with scattered Gaudi work throughout.

Regarding the NY Eve feast: we didn't want to miss the last train, so we went back to Montmelo, and found that everything was closed except for a bakery and 1 gas station/convenience store (we had known that our hotel restaurant was closed for 2 days). So, on our walk to the hotel, we bought this array of goodies, and actually enjoyed ourselves quite a bit - eating, drinking, and watching "Singing in the Rain" in French! A New Year's to remember!
















Catalunya square - the center of everything! Our favorite little Central Cafe on the square in Montmelo- no English spoken, but so helpful and nice - and good food too. One of the living statue on La Rambla (there were many).

The Maritime Museum.




Our New Year's Eve feast in our hotel room.
Below - Parc Guell - a wonderful, huge park with many Gaudi buildings and strucures.