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)!