Weekend in Barcelona…

Badtz Maru in Barcelona

Last Friday I left Portugal and begin my Spain adventure. Just a short flight from Lisbon to Barcelona, and then a train ride from the airport to my hostel. The hostel I had booked was near Catalunya Square and Las Ramblas, which is the center of Barcelona. The hostel was huge, and packed with hundreds of backpackers. I was sharing a room of 12! The hostel experience itself was a reflection of my overall impression of Barcelona, that it is packed with tourists.

One of my friends from home, Nikki, had been working in Barcelona for several months now teaching English. It was nice to see a familiar face, especially someone with an inside scoop on the city. The first night there I met up with her andher friend from Italy for sangria and tapas. My favorite tapa was a tasty sheep´s cheese called manchego.

As I only had a weekend to spend in Barcelona, I needed to make the most of it. Seeing the Gaudi archiecture is a common tourist activity in Barcelona. One of his masterpieces is the Sagrada Família andthat is the first thing I went to see on Saturday. it was pretty fascinating both on the inside and outside. Unfortunately it was lightly raining when I was there so I didn´t get the best photos, but here are a few:

And after that I went to Park Güell for more impressive creations and views of the city.

Right near my hostel was another Gaudi piece, Casa Battlo. Didn´t go in as the admission was 14 euros andthere was a line down the block. But got nice photos from the outside:

After a full day of Gaudi tourism, I met up with my friends again for some more nighttime fun in the city.

Sunday, I headed to the port area and the Montjuic park. The park is pretty huge and I only saw a fraction of it. Walked through some botanic gardens and then to Castell de Monjuic, which had a military museum.

Castell de Monjuic

One of the most impressive things in the park was its cemetery, Cementiri del Sud-Oest. By the time I got there, the cemetery was about to close though and I didn´t get much time to explore. What I did see was impressive though, all these tombs stacked right on top of each other like dresser drawers. They did not allow photography in the part of the cemetary I was in, but I got some pretty good shots from the outside.

It wasn´t until I was outside the park though and viewed the cemetery from below that I realized how extensive it really was. Probably could have spent hours there alone walking around and viewing the interesting graves.

Was pretty exhausted after all the walking, but met up with Nikki once more for dinner and vino.

 

Overall, I had mixed feelings about being a tourist in Barcelona. Prior to my trip there, I had heard a lot of hype about it. Everyone said a weekend there wouldn´t be long enough. At the end of the weekend though, I was definitely ready to move on. In my eyes, Barcelona has the problem of to many tourists as the city has really taken off since the Olympics were held there in 1992. As a result the city has a sort of corporate feeling to it in order to accommodate the masses. The Gaudi buildings are really impressive, but there are thousands of others visiting them on a daily basis which make them harder to appreciate. I just didn´t get the same genuine and authentic feeling I had gotten in even the busiest parts of Portugal. In fact, I barely even saw any locals the whole time I was there. Perhaps I needed to spend more time there, who knows…

Anyways now am in Delta del Ebro, which is about 60 miles south of Barcelona. The 2nd of my delta tourism case studies. It is a pretty popular destination for Catalonians and other Spainards for beaches, gastronomy, birds and biking. Right now though it is the off season, so hardly any other tourists are here. Still an impressive place though and I will post more thoughts and photos later.