On Our Way Home

As our flight back to London was leaving in the early afternoon so the main order of the day was packing and getting some food for the trip back. Following our shopping spree yesterday and the various Gaudi books we accumulated, packing was a bit trickier than we though but Blair's little trolley proved quite flexible! With our bags bulging we checked out of our pretty cool hotel and headed for the city's main market to stock up on supplies for the trip back.

Barcelona airport was much nicer during the day, full of shops and with no unpleasant policemen in sight, so our last couple of hours in Barcelona were as much fun as the trip has been. As we waited at our gate we both felt that the last day of our holiday arrived much quicker than we anticipated. We have been in Barcelona for six days and there is still so much left to see, do and eat! So, who knows maybe we'll be back!

The flight back home was rather bumpy as our pilot decided to try his acrobatics on the approach to Heathrow! Stirred, but not shaken!, we got of the plane to a very sunny London and headed back home.

A thousand washloads later we were ready join Kylie, Kath, Wes, Marg and Mikey (Marg's brother) for a drink and dinner at the White Horse (http://www.whitehorsesw6.com/).
This was our last dinner with Kylie before she heads back to Australia; we will miss her a lot but look forward to seeing her, Leigh, George and, who knows, hopefully Karla and Jane in the New Year.

Shop Till We Drop!

Tuesday was the designated shopping day. We started gently with a walk down Gracia Avenue where beautiful houses line both sides of the street! Our first stop was a great little wine shop to get some wine for Wes & Marg and Laia & Alberto, all of whom helped make our trip to Barcelona a great experience. The shop owner was a true wine aficionado; unfortunately his knowledge was probably wasted on both us uncultured wine creatures! Armed with two great bottles of wine we went to our next destination; Cacao Sampaka(http://www.cacaosampaka.com)
Grigoria, surrounded by all the chocolate in the world, was in paradise! At the back of the shop there was a small café were we had some real hot chocolate (more like dessert than a drink) and a little something to eat.
After a bit of a rest and some cold drinks we decided to brave the heat and shops again and made it to Campers where we both stocked up on our Camper shoes! Armed with our rapidly multiplying shopping bags we returned to our hotel dead tired and vowing never to go near a crowded shop again!
In the evening we met up with Laia and Alberto for our final Barcelona dinner and stroll in the city. We met them outside the Sagrada Familia, which looked beautiful at night, and we walked towards the hospital of La Santa Creu i San Pau. The hospital was finished in the 1930s and is the work of Montaner (he also built the amazing Palace of Catalan Music we saw on Friday). The building looks more like a mansion than a hospital and it is great to think that this is still very much in use as a general hospital.
Dinner with Laia and Alberto was, yet again, really nice and we finished it off with a cone of ice-cream and a stroll in the streets of Barcelona, truly one the best cities we've ever been.

An Olympic Dream or a Football Career!

Now that we have finished the Gaudi masterpieces
we thought a visit to Barcelona’s two famous stadia would be suitable. After a quick visit to the market to get some lunch, it was time to take in another elevated view of the city from the cable car up to Montjuic.

First up was the stadium (Estadi Olimpic) which was home to the 1992 Olympic games. The stadium is perched on the side of Montjuic, Barcelona’s largest public park, and was built in 1929 but redesigned for the Olympics to accommodate a crowd of 56,000.
As well as the home stadium the Olympic ring contains the Picornell swimming pools, Sant Jordi Sports Hall, Diving pools, Hockey, baseball and several other sports grounds.
In additon to these, the communications tower designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava is now one of the landmarks of Barcelona.

From here we made our way down, via one of the symbolic Olympic
statues in the park (which I just had to pose against!), to the
Museum of Catalan. Although it was closed we sat down and
enjoyed the food we brought at the market earlier and the view of the cascading water fountains down the Piazza Espania below.

Next came the Nou Camp which is home to FC Barcelona http://www.fcbarcelona.com/ This is was a definite must see on our trip, (or a must see on my itenerary) as it has staged many famous football games over the decades.

Over the past four years I’ve managed to see a
number of the major stadia in the UK but this one took my breath away. I must admit that I thought our 10 euro tour of the stadium & executive box wouldn’t give us much of an insight. But honestly seing this 93,053 seater stadium from ground level, president seats and commentry boxes just made me appreciate how 93,000 speactators can get a perfect view wihout the players looking like ants.
The Museum tour covered their extensive range of trophies which the club has won over the years, footage from past games and also memorabilia which other world famous athletes had given the club.

In the evening we caught up with Albert and Laia and went to
Tibidabo, one of the hills of Barcelona, for drinks. Tibidabo is a home to one of the oldest fairgrounds but we decided to stay on the other side and admire the views of the city. After a while, we all got a bit peckish so Albert & Laia took us for dinner to a place which was just a little bit different. Sandwich and Friends (http://www.sandwichandfriends.com/ ) is mix between a café, a fast food restaurant and a bar. The large cheerful murals by illustrator Jodi Labanda are its trademark and all the sandwiches are named after friends (hence the name)! The food was as great as the atmosphere and we would definitely go back (preferably with our friends Albert and Laia)!

Scaling Gaudi Heights

Following yesterday’s Gaudi extranfanza, we awoke very excited about seeing his final works of Sagrada Familia & Park Guell.

We decided to start our day with the Sagrada Familia. Despite our wanderful leaflet we were a bit concerned about finding our way, but as we soon relised it was a bit hard to miss!

The Sagrada Familia is Gaudi’s most recognised project and obviously one of the major landmarks in Barcelona. Construction started on the cathredral in 1882 and is still continues to this day. One hundred & twenty three years on and the central dome and four of the 12 towers are still under construction. Although we did wander whether we would see it completed in our lifetime, appearantly there is a completion date set for 2045.
http://www.sagradafamilia.org/eng/index.htm

Although still very much a construction site we were able to walk around and appreciate the brilliance of Gaudi’s vision. We decided to take the lift up one of the towers. At 95 metres tall we knew that the view was going to be amazing. After an hour of queuing and the two minute / 2 euro lift ride we were on top of Gaudi’s world.

Through the small openings we could see the details of various fruits, strawberies, blackcurrents & oranges at the pinacles of the nave. We were also surprised to see that some of the decoration on the towers was made out of recycled bottles and broken tiles. The views of Barcelona were also wonderful and in the distance we could see the new Jean Nouvel tower.

Coming down the tower was quite an experience especially towards the bottom where the spiral staircase became very steep and narrow and there was no handrail to hold on to! Grigoria was humming all the way down and I just took it a step at a time!

In the vaults of the Sagrada Familia there was an exhibition about Gaudi’s work which included a number of models for the church. Unfortunately a lot of his original material was lost in two fires but a number of replicas were made from old photos.

Our next destination, Park Guell, was only a short metro ride away. To Grigoria’s relief the Spanish have installed a number of escalators taking visitors up the hill. The first stop was the piazza, on top of the market, which was full of tourists.

After a bit of food we strolled in the market, saw the famous cameleon (which was impossible to photograph without a total stranger being in the picture) and heard a band play under the upper viaduct. Although the park was originally meant to be a small village only two houses were build before funds run out, one of which is today the Gaudi museum.

Gaudi Delights on Grigoria´s Birthday

Today we braved the typical rainy weather (for Grigoria´s birthday, not for Barcelona!) and went on a Gaudi tour extravaganza and later a beautiful beach front dinner to celebrate Grigoria´s 26th Birthday!

The day started with Casa Mila "La Padrera" http://www.lapedreraeducacio.org, Gaudi´s last completed and most important civic project. The building is now designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is currently owned by one of Spain´s large banks. The tour took us around one of the fourth floor apartments, attic & roof terrace.

Although the furnishing were not the original ones they were typical of the era complete with ancient water boiler in the bathrooms. The maid´s room and bathroom were both bigger than my living room!

Guadi´s amazing way of encompassing human & organic forms in the facade, internal "leaf" canopy and the door handles, which molded to your finger's. In addition the constant use of fixed door head lights in each room, meant that all areas of the apartment
felt very comfortable and light.

After briefly visiting the undulating roof terrace to
enjoy the views between rain drops it was time to head towards more Gaudi sites.

During late afternoon we spent viewing the
Caso Batilo http://www.casabatllo.es and visiting Picasso muesuem http://www.museupicasso.bcn.es/eng/index_eng.htm
before getting ready to head out for dinner.

(Grigoria) Getting to the place where we were to have dinner was a little adventure in itself. Blair maintained that he did not know where we were going but had a couple of clues for me to decipher. Each clue lead to a different line on the underground we had to take to get there.
After the third line change I was convinced we were doing a full circle! Our final train took us to the Barcelona sea side were we strolled on the parade overlooking the sea. Suddenly Blair disappeared into what could only be described as a glass box with a staircase leading downstairs. A couple of minutes later, he emerged to tell me that we appear to have a reservation there!

The restaurant was called "Agua" (water in Spanish, website: http://www.aguadeltragaluz.com/) and the staircase lead down to a lovely restaurant with a terrace right in front of the sea! I don't know how Blair managed but we got the best table in the house! Food was of course fantastic and we even got music from a saxophonist playing outside.

After dinner we walked for an hour back to the hotel, which was no mean feat given the distance and the food we had just consumed, bringing to an end one of the best birthdays ever!

Barcelona gives a warm welcome to Blair!

We are finally in Barcelona! Glorious weather, amazing food and photo opportunities at every corner! But lets take things from the very beginning!

Our trip started with a lovely sightseeing tour of Heathrow´s taxiway were we spent 45 minutes waiting to take off and had a nice chat with Paul, our neighbour from Glasgow (Grigoria thought he was speaking Polish!). Paul and his girlfriend Michelle were not as prepered as we were for their trip so we decided to give them one of our little leaflets to use. Paul was convinced it was something we bought and was really impressed when he realised that this was something Wes and Blair made!

After two hours in the air we arrived at Barcelona airport to be greeted by the traditional hospitality of the Spanish police. Blair, and another Kiwi couple, were recognised by "Inspector Gadget" on the gate for the true criminals they were and singled out to be taken to the police station. After a stern, yet educational, talk by the nice policeman (in Spanish!) we were finally on our way!

Our hotel, Gat Xino, (pictures to follow) is really funky with a huge "kermit the frog" coloured shower!

Today we decided to walk around the Ciutat Velta area, to get a taste for the city and markets. Our first stop was the Barcelona town hall in Barri Gothic. It was an impressive building full of gargulles but not nearly as grand as La Seu, the Barcelona cathedral! Next came the Santa Caterina´s market which had an impressive new gluelam timber/mosaic tiled roof, which was full of fresh fruit and veg as well as meat and fish.

The Barcelona Music Palace and the Modern Art
Museum really impressed us. They were both very different; the Music Palace an example of more traditional Catalan architecture using decorative mosaic tiles and the Modern Art Museum which is formed of clean lines, a glazed atrium and an odd organic form at the far end. http://www.macba.es

For our first true Spanish lunch we decided to bypass the Camper hotel and restaurant (they are really diversifying in Spain!) and went to a traditional Tapas bar, "Kasparo", tucked away in a quiet little square.

After a healthy dose of jamon, patatas bravas and hummous we are now ready for our walk back to the hotel to prepare for dinner with Laia tonight & some more tradional spanish food! http://www.tallerdetapas.com

Barcelona Here We Come......

It's hard to believe that it's taken me 3.5 years to get around to seeing Barcelona. Well after months of planning & research today Grigoria & I will set off for our six day end of summer break.

As there are so many amazing things to see, I figured it would be a good idea to have some sort of Itinerary. So what started as a simple concept (too much spare time) and the involvement of our talented graphic designer flatmate Wesley - thanks mate. We have now produced what could be a marketable A3 sized colour leaflet!

So do follow us as we discover the Spanish food flavors, Park Guell, Sagrada Familia and not to mention catching up with a good friend of mine - Laia.

Blair

Hello World

Hi everyone! After almost four years in London I finally decided to start a blog!
I aim to update this blog on a regular basis so keep tuned for my forthcoming Barcelona trip update and photos!

Cheers

Blair