Barcelona - 21-24 August

I arrived in Barcelona at around 5 in the afternoon and checked into my hostel. The woman on the desk was one of the rudest people I have met and she seemed to think that I was extremely thick. The hostel itself was quite nice though and I met an Aussie guy in my room called Aaron who told me about a street festival he had stumbled on the night before and was heading back to that night. It was called the Fiesta de Gracia and was a massive street festival on the streets of the Gracia suburb. I decided to head along with him and we soon headed off. The festival is basically just a large street festival where each street has a theme that they decorate their street with and there is a competition as to whose is the best. There were also 11 different stages of different music from folk, swing and heavy metal and a large number of street vendors selling cheap keg beer and sangria. When we got there we also stumbled upon the start of the fire run where people dress like the devil and chase people through the stress with fire crackers. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen and a great introduction to Spain.

The next day I checked out of my hostel and decided to walk around the city a bit before heading to the airport or get Tess. I walked to the Montjuic mountain that I had passed the day before and saw the magic fountain and arts museum. I also wandered past the 1992 Olympics stadium before heading to back to the hostel through the El Raval (multicultural) district. After grabbing some food I caught the bus to the airport where I picked up Tess!

We headed to our hotel and then spent the afternoon wandering the old city and down to the waterfront. The city was extremely beautiful with cool alleyways with shops and markets. That night we headed back to Gracia to see if the festival was still going but it seemed to have finished the night before. It was still a really cool area though with lots of bars and restaurants. After a big first day Tess was soon ready for sleep so we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we headed back into the old city to catch the free walking tour. Our tour guide Andi was a local and had a lot of character. He told us a huge number of stories and myths about the city and its history. It was crazy the number of things that we had missed when we had walked around the day before. We walked through the whole old city and saw all the old churches, temples and palaces. We enjoyed the tour so much we decided to do the Gaudi one in the afternoon. On the next tour we were the only couple and our tour guide Mike used us as examples for all his stories. The Gaudi tour went the other way to the morning tour (away from the old city). We first passed some of the hangouts for the artists and architects of the modernism era before stating to walk up Passeig de Gracia where the billionaires had their mansions. Here we saw houses designed by Gaudi and his rivals, although Gaudi's stood out for their flowing curves and originality. My favourite one was the house for the aristocrats. After they had criticised his design he ended up screwing with them by building a maze of stairs and elevators that only went to one other random level. This made it very hard to navigate within the building. By far the crowing glory of Gaudi's life however is the aweinspiring La Sagrada Familiar, that is still under construction today. Interestingly they say it will be completed in 2026 which is the 100 year anniversary of Gaudi's death, however Mike was sceptical if it will ever be completed since as long as it is classed as a construction site the owners do not have to pay any tax on the property. Another interesting fact is that even though it is a Christian church, the church itself and the land around it is actually owned by the Mormon church who outbid the Catholics. Next we went inside and explored the crypt and the church. While it was extremely imposing from the outside, the inside was stunning. The use of light through the stained glass windows, the columns that were shaped like tree trunks and the typical Gaudi like curves that bring together nature and modernity were astounding. Once we had seen it all we jumped on the metro and headed to Blai st for dinner which had been recommended by Mike. Here we found a place with what is known as pinchos, which are similar to tapas but come on a skewer. They were all already cooked at the bar and you just took as many as you wanted and paid for the number of plates you ate at the end. The food was absolutely amazing, and we washed it all down with some nice cool sangria. It was definitely one of the best meals I had bad so far on my trip! We finished the night by walking over to the magic fountain at the foot of Mont Juic mountain. This fountain had three levels of water and danced along to music, with the show lasting about half an hour.

On our final day in Barcelona we were meeting Tessa's friends Jess and Lauren at 11.30 to catch our 2pm train to Valencia. This meant we only had a morning left to explore the last few things we wanted to do before we left. We got up early and jumped on the metro and headed out of the city to Park Guell. This is a big park on the outskirts of Barcelona that was designed by Gaudi for the summer house of a man named Guell. The park was up on top of a hill and gave us incredible views over the city and out to sea. It was also really cool to walk around the park and recognise Gaudi's touches in the way it was set out and in the little buildings around the place. It was soon time to leave and go meet the girls! We found them hiding in the shade by the main square in town and after our catch ups and introductions we headed to the nearby market for lunch. Tess and I then raced to try and see the cathedral only to find that it shuts for a short while in the middle of the day (the Spanish siesta does exist). It was then a race across town to make our train as we didn't realise the number of changes we had to make on the subway and we only made it with a few minutes to spare.

Despite this slightly hectic end we had had an amazing time in Barcelona. I had discovered that the Spanish were crazy, we had experienced the highs and lows of Spanish food, learnt about the history of the city and grown to love Gaudi. And all in only a few days! While I could definitely have spent more time in Barcelona, I think we managed to do everything that we had wanted to and it was exciting to move on to Valencia and La Tomatina!