Barcelona
December 12, 2009
OK – a quick post for a quick trip. Just came back from 2 days in Barcelona with Sophie, Byrn and Gavin. Good fun, but very hectic. Basically, we only had one full day, so we made the most it. Heading down the famous La Rambla avenue in the morning (lots of buskers, tourists and markets), followed by a trek up to Montjuic mountain in search of an elusive cable car. Once we reached the summit, we discovered (to our dismay) we could have saved ourselves the sweat and tears by catching the underground up the mountain. Argh. And we didn’t even ride the cable car! (granted, it was pretty expensive and as the other station was closed for repairs, it literally went nowhere). So, after taking in the views, we all caught the metro down to the beach and had lunch (…at McDonalds…I swear everything else was closed!)
After a deliciously Spanish Big Mac, off we went to check out Sagrada Familia, the massive Roman Catholic church which dominates the Barcelona skyline. Beginning construction in 1882, it is not expected to be completed until 2026. Once again, we were too cheap to go in, but the outside looked amazing.
As the sun started to set, we caught the tube to the base of yet another mountain – this one a tad easier to scale thanks to a series of escalators conveniently running all the way to the top. So from one of the highest point in Barcelona (Park Güell) we had an early picnic dinner (bread, cheese and champers), watching the last rays of the sun set over our very busy day.
