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.

With many streets this steep, you quickly understand why Barcelona has outdoor escalators.

Just up from where this is taken is a number of escalators built right into the street, exposed totally to the elements. They’re not sheltered from above, only on the sides by the buildings but since there are stairs on either sides of the escalators, they don’t provide much protection.

I like this shot because of the contrasting angles. I think it’d work reasonably well without the car but the odd, off-kilter angle helps it out to be slightly more surreal. Rotating the shot so the car is straight doesn’t look weird, it just looks wrong. The contrast and colours work well here too, I think. Particularly with the straight lines on the wall.

A father and son walk along the platform at Barcelona’s Estació de França train station.

This shot was taken around fifteen minutes before we boarded our overnight train from Barcelona to Paris. Getting to Paris from Barcelona is significantly faster than getting to Barcelona from Marseille, even though Marseille is closer! This is because the French fast trains are just that, incredibly fast.

I really like the design and architecture the building (there are plenty of other photos out there) and was glad we had half an hour (or more, I forget) to just sit, relax and enjoy the place. It was amazingly quiet which made the whole atmosphere really peaceful. I managed to get a few good shots as I was able to take my time.

Boats moored in Barcelona, Spain.

At one end of the famous Las Ramblas is one of Barcelona’s port areas. A high-end shopping centre is now where what may once have been loading docks.

Instead, there are now many boats moored for purposes of pleasure rather than commerce. Behind where this photo is looking is still used for large ships, but they are cruise liners and ferries.

At night, the water is lit by nearby lights and one can see thousands of fish swimming near the surface.

A beachside street in Barcelona, Spain.

We passed by this street a couple of times, and on the last time Justine pointed out the shoes hanging from the wire, which is the attraction in this shot.

I like, however, the whole scene from it. The fence in the rear of shot makes it difficult to see the beach, and the sky is rather unattractive. Otherwise though, I think the shot is a great “slice of life” shot.

P.S. This is my 1,000th post on bludger.org!

Seafood for sale at Barcelona’s La Boqueria Market.

Having been to the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne plenty of times, I expected a similar market when we stepped into La Boqueria on our first morning in Barcelona.

Our pensione (hotel) was just around the corner from Las Ramblas and very close to the market. We wandered through the market which felt like it was at least two or three times larger than the “Queen Vic”. What was interesting though is the amount of fresh… everything here. In fact, there are even restaurants which will cook fresh food you’ve bought! Unfortunately the line was too long, so we missed out.

Definitely the highlight here was the fresh seafood, which puts Melbourne’s to shame, but there are plenty of other things to buy as well.

The ferris wheel at Tibidabo theme park, Barcelona.

At the top of a mountain in Barcelona sits a church and a theme park — Tibidabo. We’d not planned to visit but overheard a few others discussing the place after they’d been there a previous day. We decided to head up on a whim and after walking to a bus stop we waited for the bus to arrive.

A bus pulled up to another stop and we realised we — along with several others — were waiting at the wrong stop. We finished our icy poles and climbed aboard.

After we disembarked from the bus, we still required a long and steep funicular ride. It offered some good views and when we arrived at the park, realised it was about to close in only 45 or so minutes. Since entry is free it wasn’t a big deal. Some of the rides go out over the mountain so you have a large drop below but we didn’t bother going on any of the rides.

Though the park is in a much more interesting location, the size reminded me of Luna Park.