[sayakc]

Recently I had travelled to Barcelona for work. The schedule was such that I had two clear days, which I duly utilized to explore the city and the below photologue is an outcome of that. It has great architecture and is deep in history and there are lots of places where one can visit. I was recommended to take the Hop On-Hop Off buses to visit the city. But I decided otherwise and walked on foot (approximately 30 kms in those 2 days) since the Hotel where I was staying was pretty centrally located and most tourist sites were nearby. I also took a metro ride to the Camp Nou, since it was quite some distance away. While walking was a great way to explore the depths of each place, but it also resulted in me not getting enough time to visit a quite a few more recommended sites like the Montjuic Hill, Tibidabo Hill, Piccaso's Museum and Park Guell. But getting to see all places, whereas, highly desirable was not the objective. The objective was to have a good time, which I certainly enjoyed.

Barcelona has a great food scene. The Spanish Paella was high on my fooding agenda, but since the quantity was too much for one person I deliberately omitted it from my list. Since the football world cup was going on at that time, I spent a couple of evenings in a pub nearby to watch the action, enjoying some tapas and beer. Other than these I had some grilled chicken and salmon - simple ingredients but really fresh and tasty. Also, I enjoyed fantastic pork and beef steaks which again was during an outing with my colleagues during the evenings. In the short time, I also found out an Indian Restaurant where I dined for a couple of nights.



Our office headquarters are in Munich where I had been earlier. After which, I had travelled to the subsidiary office in Barcelona which runs most of the Health Care business. I took these photos as the plane took off from Munich.


Typical Bavarian scenery. Red roofed tiled houses and white washed walls.




Flying over the Austrian Alps.


I reached Barcelona in the evening, on a Friday around 6 PM and took a taxi to the Hotel, freshened up fast and went on a walk to 'La Ramblas' the city's main boulevard. The stretch, lined with beautiful trees, shops, cafes and eateries start from the Placa De Catalunya and ends at the statue of Columbus.


Place De Catalunya and La Ramblas


The Placa De Catalunya


Cafes


Lots of people walking around the Boulevard.


At one of the cafes.














A collage of La Ramblas


Columbus Monument, the other end of La Rambla.


The Old City and La Cathedral



Barcelona's central place of worship, La Cathedral, is located in the Barrio Gothico. Here, in front of the Cathedral, a Pakistani street seller warned me (what I was already aware) to keep my belongings safe.

The Spanish speak very little English and communication is obviously a challenge. I remember an incident, when I was not carrying a matchbox and I wanted to light up a cigarette. So, I asked an old man(and who looked to be poor going by his demeanour and dress) who was smoking cigarette under a shade. After a lot of hand gestures, the problem was solved by Google Translate. After lending me the match box, the old guy asked for a cigarette from me and I lent him one.



The Old City has a charm. There was a Flamenco performance scheduled for the Sunday evening at one of the squares in the old city and the agents were distributing tickets. I noticed several graffiti painted doors in the city and all the photos that you see below are of the old city. The old city is like 'quarter' around which the new city has grown. There are several parallel roads that connects the Old City to La Rambla at one end. The other roads connect it to the beach.

The graffiti painted doors were taken at the Old City.

[sayakc]

Sagrada Familia

The Sagrada Familia is an unfinished church originally conceived and planned by Gaudi. It is one of the architectural wonders of Barcelona. I am not a history/architectural buff and I only visited the place to take a photo of it from the outside. Tickets cost approximately 30 Euros and is worth it (from hearsay) if you are deep into architecture.




Camp Nou

From Sagrada Familia, I took a metro ride to Camp Nou. Now the fact is I am a Real Madrid supporter and many might scoff at me. But even the most ardent of Real supporter will insist that if there are cathedrals of football then Camp Nou is certainly one of them. There is the Museum tour which I availed and spent more than an hour and a half walking through the hallowed tunnel, awards and trophies, press conference rooms, sitting in the dug out and then walking on the turf of the very stadium where Real Madrid has been unfortunately humbled quite a few times :( . The die hard Catalunyans revere the club and it is as much a part of the local history as Gaudi's creations. A colleague, who is FC Barcelona's season ticket holder even spotted his seat when I showed him a photo of the gallery.




Barcelona Market
Lonely Planet lists the St. Joseph market as one of the attractions of Barcelona. I purchased some dry fruits, saffron (from Alicante ) and some souvenirs. The market offers great opportunities for photography. Below are some of the photos.



















After a visit to the market followed by a lunch of fried chicken tapas and Sangria at La Ramblas, I headed out to the beach. The vast mediterranean sea spreads out beyond the sickle shaped coastline. La Barceloneta is the most famous beach of Barca and easily the most crowded one. The beach bars (locally called chiringuitos ) are overflowing with tourists and it feels great to be a part of the scene. There are yatches, large passenger liners steaming in the horizon, people playing volleyball, people enjoying their drinks and yes, most of the crowd is sunbathing. There are lots of North African migrants selling contraband on the beach. The La Barceloneta beach also is home to the fishermen quarters.

























The Sunday evening was closing in and the long walk from La Barceloneta to my hotel was becoming increasingly tiresome. And with office to attend the next day it was dreary too. I crossed over through the old city, Placa De Catalunya and then finally the Burberry store at the corner and then reached the hotel where after great sleep was ready for office the next day.

[theMAG]

Mod's note: Moved thread from Assembly Line to the Travelogues section. Thanks for sharing!

[alpha1]

Wow what a picturesque city! Thanks for the thread and the pictures.

Looks like there is a huge ownership of the leisure sailing boats there.

[Jeroen]

Very nice. Brings back lots of memories. For many years I used to attend the Mobile World Congress. Started doing that when they were in Nice and about 10-12 years ago they moved it to Barcelona. It is typically in February which is also a great time to visit weatherise.

It can get a bit touristy, but it is still a nice enjoyable town with lots to see and do. As European cities go, not too bad price wise either. Just try and avoid the days when there are big conventions in town (such as the MWC) because at least hotel prices shoot up and you won’t be able to get a taxi at night.

Jeroen