After a night on the overnight ferry, we arrived at Barcelona! It was quite weird getting out of the ferry terminal, you literally just drive out from the ship and there were no customs at all. I know they are all part of the EU and they have eliminated border checks but it was still weird.
So, Barcelona, city of Gaudi and Picasso! After the Venice pick pocketing incident, we were actually a bit wary of Barcelona since the pickpockets there are supposed to be rather good. We actually spent quite a bit of time reading up on the various types of pickpocket scams and various other scams that happens in Spain. It was quite interesting to read but you also end up a little paranoid.
Anyhoo, we signed up for 2 walking tours in Barcelona, one of which was ok and one of which was really quite good. Both the tours can be signed up at the tourist office and they were relatively cheap, but of course cheap prices meant large groups, no more one-to-one with the tour guide. Our first tour was the Gothic tour which takes us through a walk in the Gothic Quarter, ‘Barcelona’s historical and political centre’. The group was really huge and I think our tour guide tried her best but she was somehow not very engaging. In addition, there was some kind of demonstration going on so I think we missed out on some areas. There were some rather nice sights though such as the Cathedral and some other which I forgot the names.
We had good meals in Barcelona and of course, being in Spain meant drinking Sangria!
Monk Fish with peppers
Pork Steak with Peppers
Fries+Pork Chunks+Chorizo+Egg = "Broken Eggs"
Super dish!
Spanish pork chops
The second tour we did was the Picasso tour and our guide was fabulous. While the group was just as huge, he was quite engaging and shared quite a few tidbits with us. It was rather interesting to visit the various places that influenced Picasso as a youth, his only public piece of art and of course the museum where you can see all his works before he started on his own unique style. As a person, he was quite horrible I think (all the wives, lovers and mistresses) but his talent is quite undeniable. Though we are not really that into art, the tour was quite interesting.
And of course what is Barcelona without Gaudi. The city had 3 of his works, Sagrada Familia (which you need to queue to go in), Casa Batllo and Casa Mila. There is also a Park Guell, which we didn’t visit due to lack of time. Apparently all his works are considered UNESCO World Heritage Sites. His works are really quite interesting and we both enjoyed them very much.
Sagrada Familia
Inside the Sagrada Familia
Sagrada Familia is really quite interesting, you can read all about it here. It was quite refreshing to see something different from all the churches we have visited in Italy and while it is still far from complete, I think the end product will be quite a sight to behold. There is a lift which goes up to the towers of the church and which you have to pay more for and which there is a designated time to go up. The view from the top was quite amazing and you get a pretty good view of Barcelona as most of the buildings are not very high. It was quite confusing though cos I thought we can walk across the towers but I think due to the construction going on, they sealed off the walkway. We were literally walking around in circles for a while and it was scary to look down from that height.
As for Casa Batllo and Casa Mila, Casa Batllo was quite an interesting house but I thought it wasn’t very well maintained. There were parts of the roof that had mosaic tiles falling off and some of the paintings on the wall were also chipped. It was amazing how much thought Gaudi put into each and every aspect of the building, from the doorknobs to the windows etc. Casa Mila was much better maintained and though we could only visit the roof and some parts of the terrace, more care seemed to have been taken in maintaining the building as a whole. Casa Batllo was also quite expensive to go into compared to the other two, but at the end of the day, it was still worth it.
Casa Batllo -
Gaudi's fascination with nature and its form shown here
Casa Mila / La Pedrera
Sagrada Familia and Casa Batllo both required some queueing to enter but it wasn’t excessive. Summer time may be a little more crazy though and it doesn’t seem that they restrict the number of visitors at any one time so morning may be a better time to go. There are other Gaudi buildings around Spain but I think Barcelona has the most, so all in all definitely a city to visit.
Other than all the Gaudi buildings, we also visited ‘the largest market in Europe’ La Boqueria. It’s like our wet markets in Singapore but not as wet or smelly and with nicer displays of vegetables, meat and fruit. We concluded it looked nicer cos they bother arranging the produce rather than leaving them in the cardboard boxes like how we do it in Singapore. The fruit juices there on display all looked quite yummy and it was interesting how their fruit juices were always something combined with coconut, like raspberry+coconut, strawberry+coconut etc, weird combinations but it actually turned out to be quite tasty.
Arranged with love...
Endless rows of juice combinations
Chocolates,
Chilies,
We also did some window shopping. I had expected Mango and Zara shops to be everywhere but I think there were slightly more Zara than Mango shops around. Prices do seem to be a little cheaper than Singapore but then again, I only buy Mango during sale and nope, I didn’t buy anything.
One thing we did end up doing in Barcelona was eating quite a fair bit of fast food. We hardly saw McDonalds or any other fast food in Italy but everywhere you go in Barcelona, there seems to be a fast food outlet. It also doesn’t help that they have lunch so late (2pm is the fashionable time to eat lunch, we have seen people strolling in at 4pm to eat lunch!) so sometimes we get so hungry the only option seems to be fast food. Tapas weren’t exactly cheap either (around 3 or 4 euros per dish and we order around 4 or 5 dishes in order to have a proper dinner) and we only had it one night at a place that had 2 baby cockroaches crawling nearby so not the most pleasant experience. We also tried the paella but its quite huge and the first time we ate it, we struggled to finish it. We ate it once in Barcelona and then decided to only eat it in Valencia since that is apparently where they have the best paella in Spain. Food portions in Spain are quite big though by our standards and we usually struggle to finish our food. Meals were also quite ‘meaty’ which was a change from Italy where it was more balanced.
Paella!
All in all though, Barcelona was quite enjoyable, not withstanding all the warnings about pickpockets. And of course since we were fresh off the Venice experience, we were on super high alert.
