Toe to toe on Las Ramblas, Barcelona.

Las Ramblas is filled with street performers, souvenir shops, pet stores and thousands upon thousands of people wandering up and down it’s significant length. Here, we ate churros, ride chopper-style bicycles at breakneck speeds through incredibly dense crowds, watched some amazing street performers and yes, took photos.

At our hotel, the owner went to great lengths to advise us of the dangers of walking along Las Ramblas — pickpockets, scam artists, thieves and other ne’er do wells of various description.

We never saw any of this, with the exception of a large crowd gathered around a man running three-card Monte. With delight, we watched people try to beat the game and fail each time.

Day Thirty-Seven
Barcelona
13 September 2007 22:07

Last night’s sleep was punctuated by an unwelcome visitor.  A mouse had crept into our room — probably through an open window, even though we’re on the second floor — and was exploring quite loudly.  I tried to “shoo” the mouse and thought I’d succeeded.  Just as we drifted off to sleep our friend leapt into action.  The second time seemed to scare him off.

When we told the owner in the morning, he seemed quite annoyed; at us or the mouse wasn’t clear.  He went up to the room with us and did a sweep the bomb squad would be proud of and we agreed it must be gone.

Our first destination today was the Museo di Xocolata (Chocolate Museum).  Inside was a history of chocolate from the Aztecs as well as some amazing chocolate sculptures.  As we left we went to buy some bonbons and Justine couldn’t tell what one was.  It was a salty hazelnut praline.  As she wasn’t sure they gave us a free sample (they’re about $2.50 each) and it was actually really good.  We bought a few and headed off.

Lunch was at an “Udon” restaurant, basically a ripoff of “Wagamama” which we like back home.  I had chicken udon noodles and soup.

As we headed to the metro station, we stopped of at a “Xocoa” shop (we’d bought some stuff from one yesterday elsewhere) and got another small bar of chocolate — white with raspberry — and a brownie.

I’d guessed the wrong metro station by using our map so we roamed the back streets of a suburb which seemed at least partly safe, with a partial knowledge of where we should be on the map.  Give or take a few blocks.

After a lot of criss-crossing we arrived at the base of a hill where we caught a bus up to catch a funicular to Tibidabo, which is an amusement park of sorts.  The park itself was closed but we could wander next to it and the view was great.  Rides were working, but only a few, but we weren’t interested.  We’d gone up at 5:30pm and the last funicular down was at 6:15pm.  We caught it back down.

Back at the docks we went to the shopping centre we’d visited yesterday as Justine wanted something but had been up able to get it yesterday.

The place was again closed (”back in 5″) so we went outside and grabbed dinner at a tapas bar on the docks.  The food was really good and as our 5th, 6th and 7th plates came Justine popped into the shop and got her stuff.

We couldn’t finish all the food so with full stomachs headed back up Las Ramblas and to bed.

Day Thirty-Six
Barcelona
12 September 2007 23:48

The morning today was filled by a combination of us sleeping and doing laundry. After all the laundry was hung up (by Justine while I checked our email and bank balances) we headed out.

Our first destination was the Parc Güell, which was intended to be a gated community, but never eventuated. A highlight is the long mosaic park bench which we sat on for quite a while and is rather comfortable. The drainage system from the chairs is good too. The views from the park offered a 360° view of Barcelona. The Sagrada Familia church is an imposing structure. In the tranquil park are a number of cats, sleeping, too.

Just as interesting as the Park is the way up. The hill we had to climb is long and steep but there were half a dozen escalators to help us with our ascent.

After a 1.5km walk downhill from the park to the nearest station, we arrived at the massive Sagrada Familia. The way we approached the church seems to have been from the back and though I am no fan of Gaudi’s work I think a combination of the park and church make me a convert. He seems to have been a very inspired man.

The “front” of the church, however, looks new, different to the intended design and just awful. Both of us agreed that the original façade is nice but the new is just terrible. The inside is ugly but even worse due to it being a giant construction site. If the design stayed true it would be impressive but as it is we don’t like it.

A short while after sitting in the park and contemplating the church we headed off to the Las Ramblas once again.

In contrast to the night, Las Ramblas has heaps of street performers, buskers, and yes, people trying to hustle with variations of three card monte. A large crowd surrounded one hustler and we both chuckled as we watched people throw away their money worthlessly.

At the end of Las Ramblas we saw the statue of Colombus and headed across the road to the docks. The far end of the docks has a very new shopping centre so we headed in for a look and ended up buying some Spanish chocolate and some stuff from Calvin Klein since it seems to be a lot cheaper than back home. Justine also bought a pair of Havaianas thongs with a design you can’t get in Australia as well as having Swarovski crystals embedded in the, which is also a service the shops offer but again not at home.

For dinner we both had paella. Mine was seafood, though I sent it back when it came with meat and chicken, but no seafood. Justine had a vegetarian one. When I got mine again it had the prerequisite mussels, prawns and scampi. I washed it down with Spanish beer.

The paella was OK, but we like the one we make at home better, even if it is not as traditional or authentic.

I’ve now taken over 10,000 photos. Obviously not all are winners but it’s still a milestone!

Day Thirty-Five
Barcelona
11 September 2007 23:19

Since the only train to Barcelona from Marseille was at 3pm, we had a morning to kill there.

We headed down to see the famed fish market, people were selling all kinds of seafood which is used for restaurants like the one in which we ate yesterday.

Our intention was to travel to the d’If island which has a prison used on the “Count of Monte Cristo” story, but it was too windy for the ferries to run.

Instead, we walked along the docks and ended up at a large palace French royalty had built but never used.  The location had a great view of the docks but was incredibly windy.

Back down at the docks we each had a crepe, mine was Grand Marnier and sugar and Justine had Nutella and coconut.  Both with cream and ice cream of course!  Across the road was a small “train” — a car shaped like a train — that we’d seen the day before.

We boarded the “train” which took us on a scenic journey up a hill that lead to yet another church, but the views were fantastic and we had a good view of the d’If island anyway.

The first train, between Marseille and Montpellier was first class for us.  Leather seats, quiet, lots of room, reasonably new.  In contrast, the secondtrain didn’t have anything but second class, it was mostly old, possibly from the 1960s, and not very comfortable.  Inconvenient since it was 4½ hours from Montpellier to Barcelona.

Just before we hit the Spanish border, there was a delay for 20 or so minutes.  We cracked out the portable media player again and began to watch “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”.  At the border — in between two stations — we stopped again and had to present our passports to Spanish Police.

The train arrived in Barcelona at 10pm, just as our movie finished, and we headed off to find our hotel.  Three metro trains later, we were on Las Ramblas in a huge tidal wave of people; looking for our street took a few minutes but wasn’t tough to locate.

As we arrived at the hotel, the owner had to unlock the doors for us.  When we told him our names he told us he’d already charged our first night’s accommodation as he thought we were a “no show”!  Easily resolved, but could have been an issue since the whole place was booked out.

The hotel owner went to great lengths to try and explain to us in his broken English how we should carry our valuables if walking along Las Ramblas at night.

Our room, like a lot of others we’ve had, has a shower you have to hold which is annoying.  Also like a few others the bathroom smells like a sewer.  Delicious.