Sun and Sangria

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Trip Start Jul 11, 2010 Previous
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  Barcelona, Spain
Saturday, September 4, 2010

Our departure to Spain was delayed because the baggage handlers thought there were ten extra bags on board our plane; turns out they just couldn't count very well. Eventually our flight took off and halfway through the flight we looked out the window and saw, to our absolute amazement, snow! It has been so hot and humid everywhere we have been, but in what we worked out must have been part of the French Alps, there was snow on some of the mountain tops! It was pretty amazing to see, and there were lots of beautiful mountains and valleys throughout the whole flight. As we were descending towards Barcelona, our first sight of land was a huge sewerage farm, and then we landed. To our surprise, the whole plane clapped the pilot on landing! So funny! Hooray for not dying apparently!!

We picked up a car at the airport in Barcelona, in a pretty car park complete with palm trees! Our car was a Scoda this time; Craig quickly decided it was not that good a car, but as passenger, it was still pretty comfy. We drove into the city and found our hotel, and, very luckily, a free car park (although Craig had to get up at 6am to move it into a paid parking spot to avoid a fine). It was about 9pm by the time we checked in to our hotel. We were pretty buggered and the area we were staying in seemed a little seedy in the dark, so we ate dinner not too far from home, which turned out to be some delicious food. We were close to La Rambla, a busy pedestrianised street, so we had a little wander along there, before heading to bed.

As we were coming back to Barcelona, we decided to just leave the city and head straight to the beach the next day. Also, we had booked a hotel in a nicer area of Barcelona for our return, so decided to base our sightseeing from there. About 100km from Barcelona, along the Costa Brava (Rugged Coast), is a tiny little town called Llafranc. We had booked three nights in a gorgeous little boutique hotel which was basically right on the beach. We stopped at a supermercat (supermarket) in a larger town near Llafranc and stocked up on delicious food. One of my favourite things in a new city or country has become exploring a supermarket. I love seeing all the different foods and working out where everything is and what things you just can't buy (fresh milk). And Craig enjoys figuring out where the brands are produced and what brands we assumed were Australian but aren't (Old El Paso). Arriving in Llafranc, somehow we managed to find another free car park, which are apparently really hard to come by, and checked in to our hotel.

We spent the next three days doing the following extremely stressful activities: sunbaking on the beach, swimming in the sea, trying not to look at all the naked boobs on the beach, drinking beers on the beach, eating picnic lunches on the beach, napping on the beach, watching a beach concert that was performed by a man who can only be described as a Spanish Wiggle (think "hot potatoes"), and watching young boys play a soccer match that appeared to be at least as serious as the recent World Cup final, complete with staged falls and tops thrown over heads after a goal. One of the days we spent seven straight hours on the beach. It was a wonderful place, and we had a much needed rest and rejuvenate. One interesting thing we noticed was that the restaurants don't even open for dinner until 8:30pm! We knew the Spanish liked to eat late, but we really had to adjust our eating habits so that we werent't starving by the time we could eat dinner at 9pm! We ate some fabulous paella and delicious seafood, and were definitely sad to be leaving this lovely place. Another interesting thing we noticed is that the nannas definitely don't mind getting their boobs out on the beach, no matter how saggy and wrinkly they are! One lady looked exactly like that old lady out of Something About Mary! It made me realise that us Aussie women are very prudish...

We took the windy coastal route back to Barcelona, sort of like our Great Ocean Road. It was actually a pretty similar coastline to Victoria, but I think the different coastal areas in Spain are all quite different from each other, so this probably isn't the case in other parts of Spain. There weren't many towns along the coast, but there were a couple of strange, ugly, enormous resort areas along the route, complete with tennis court, pool, and mini train down from the top of the cliff to the beach!

When we arrived back in Barcelona, we decided to drop our bags off at the hotel before taking the car back to Hertz. Our hotel was in the popular area of Barri Gotic, and we soon realised that although cars are allowed down the tiny streets, pedestrians pretty much claim it as their own. Craig had a fun time fighting the car through the crowds and we breathed a sigh of relief when we found a parking garage.

Craig's turn...

It wasn't a normal car park though. We had to drive our car into what looked like a garage that you would have at home. Then the door shut and our car was gone. When the door opened our car was gone and someone else could park their car there. Where we going to get our car back or had it been crushed?

After finding our hotel we got back to the car park and were told that our car would come out of door 1 rather than door 2 where we put it? We have no idea how it got there but our car came out as we were told it would. And we had our keys the whole time, they couldn't have driven it anywhere.

We also had an adventure dropping the car off at Hertz. When we finally found Hertz they told us that we had to drop the car off in the car park across road. Even though it was just across the road, it still took us about 10 minutes to work out how to get there and then actually get there.

We found Barcelona a little bit dirtier than other cities. I think we judged this by the colour of my feet after walking around the city for the day wearing thongs. La Rambla is probably the main street of Barcelona which is kind of like a long mall with a single row of traffic down either side. There were street performers, pet stores, souveneir stores and heaps of tourists.

We then headed our for some traditional spanish Tapas for dinner and washed it down with a couple jugs of sangria which is like red wine mixed with fruit and ice blocks. We took quite a liking to it.

The next day we went out for breakfast. This wasn't a breakfast you would have at home. We had Churros (Spanish Donuts) dipped in hot chocolate. The hot chocolate that Elodie ordered wasn't your everyday hot chocolate either. It was a thick, hot chocolate sauce. This was a good way to start the day.

We then had an adventure shopping for a keyboard for the ipad so that Elodie could do some work next week while we are in Italy. We hunted around a for a few shops first and then when we finally found one, bought it and opened it, the keyboard on the inside didn't match the picture on the box. We got a Spanish keyboard. We think we have managed to change the settings and got it to work like a normal keyboard. Infact I am typing on it right now...

Back to Elodie...
We headed to Park Guell expecting an amazing green park with lots of crazy mosaic ornaments designed by Gaudi. I think we entered the park from the back, as it was near a train station on our line. We headed up a long, long hill, complete with its own escalators in parts! Walking into the park was like walking into the desert! It was arid and dry, with cactuses, and pretty much everything was brown. It was quite strange. We walked around the path a bit, which eventually took us down to the main entrance, where all the mosaic stuff is, including the famous dragon and the longest park bench in the world, also mosaic. Sadly, we were a little disappointed with Park Guell. I know a lot of people rave about it, but it was incredibly packed with tourists who were jumping all over the dragon so much so that we could barely see it. And it was such an intensely hot day that we were craving a lovely green park to sit in and cool down. The few trees that were in the park didn't offer a lot of shade and the shady areas were packed with people. Also, I was sitting on a patch of grass watching the pigeons searching for food on he dirt path when a huge rat scurried out from behind a bush and joined them! So sorry folks, we weren't huge fans. It was so hot and humid at the park (it was around 2pm) that we definitely gained an understanding of the reasoning for the Spanish siesta! We cancelled our ideas of walking around the city finding more Gaudi architecture, and headed back to the hotel, stopping by the market to grab some food, and had a delicious picnic lunch on our bed with the air conditioning in our faces.

Once it cooled down a little (not much), we headed back out. We stopped by Sagrada Familia, the enormous, as yet unfinished, cathedral designed by Gaudi. It was very impressive. We expected it to be covered in scaffolding but it wasn't really, and there were sections around the back that were completed and were unbelievably detailed. Craig found it very hard to believe that even with today's technology, they still won't be finished construction until 2026! After this we headed to Casa Batllo, another of Gaudi's creations. This one is an apartment building, with people living in it, but a huge area is open to the public. We went inside to have a look around, and we were given an electronic audio guide to walk through the house with. The guide was full of excruciatingly boring, long-winded details, but the place itself was really cool. Gaudi had a fascination with the ocean, so there were lots of blue mosaics and swirly details. You could go all the way to the balcony on the roof, which had some crazy mosaic chimneys that looked like pencils! Even more, there was the most adorable puppy up on the roof! The owner let me pat him and he was sooooo soft!

Next stop was Casa Pedrera, we think. It's possible we looked at a different building and just thought it was a Gaudi! It was dark by this time, it's our excuse, and we're sticking to it. This building was pretty cool as well as it had no straight edges, just lots of curves. And Craig embarrassed the crap out of me by setting up the tripod in the middle of the road to take some night photos! Starving by this time, we caught the train down to the port, an area called La Barceloneta, and sat down at a restaurant for another meal of sangria, tapas, and paella. It's a good thing we're not staying too long in Spain or we would end up so fat!!!

Our last stop for the night was the magic fountain, which is basically a huge set of fountains that light up in different colours for a few hours each night. It was very cool. Then we took our tired little feet home to bed. Next morning, we were finally at an internet cafe at a time that wasn't the middle of the night in Australian time, and made our first Skype call home to Clifford (and Mum and Dad)!!! It was so awesome to see Clifford - his hair has grown lots and he's getting so big! I wanted to give him a cuddle so bad! We tried to talk to him but he wasn't interested at all. Mum and Dad's dog Max, on the other hand, pretty much tried to climb inside the laptop he was so excited. It was lovely to talk to them, and Mum even held the laptop up to the TV for a while so Craig could watch the Collingwood game!

We spent our last hour or so in Barcelona wandering down La Rambla and marvelling at the crazy street performers, finding the square that has the street lamps that Gaudi designed in his first job for the city, and walking down to the port with its huge Colombus statue. Barcelona has been a great place just for aimless wandering. The Barri Gotic area was so great to aimlessly wander through. Lots of tiny alleys, cute cafes with coffee and croissants. I even found a H&M store and bought a new top!

And now, instead of going home like we're meant to, we're heading back to Italy!

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