The travels of Tim and Megan: Barcelona, Spain

Monday

On Monday morning we headed out a touch earlier, as we had a lot of places to visit. We grabbed breakfast at the same cafe as we had on the Sunday morning. We had pretty much the same thing and it was just as delicious! Then we caught the metro to the north-west part of the city to visit the Camp Nou - probably Europe's most awesome football stadium.

For those not massively into football, Barcelona FC is consistently one of the biggest and best football clubs in Europe and, therefore, the world. More the ever, in the past couple of seasons, Barcelona has set the football world on fire, playing a breath-taking style of attacking football and winning pretty much everything in sight. They have a squad chocka block full of superstars, including the world's best footballer, Lionel Messi, as well as Thierry Henry, Xavi, Iniesta, Ibrahimovic, Dani Alves, etc etc, the list goes on.

The Camp Nou has a capacity of just under 99,000, making it the largest stadium in Europe. We arrived at the Camp Nou slightly before the stadium tours opened, so we checked out the Mega Store. They're not kidding, it was seriously mega - two massive floors full of all sorts of merchandise. Super impressive. We grabbed our audio guides and set off on the tour. The tour allowed us to walk down on the edge of the playing field, into the grandstand, the directors' box (the best seats in the house) and the press centre right at the very top level of the stand. Sadly, the away dressing room and the tunnel that leads down on to the field (which are usually part of the tour) were out of action.

The club's motto "Mes que un club" ("More than a club") is plastered throughout the stadium. Decades ago, the football club became a symbol of the struggle of Catalan nationalism against the central government in Madrid. This has made the annual home and away clashes with Real Madrid FC, the other football giant in Spain, about more than just who will win the league title each season - there is a fierce rivalry in these matches that goes beyond the football.

After the tour, we visited the stadium museum, where the undoubted highlight was the trophy cabinet with the "Six Trophies" on display (photo below). In 2008, a Barcelona legend, Pep Guardiola, took over as manager of Barcelona, despite being very young for a manager. In his first season at the club, Barcelona won an unprecedented six trophies - every competiton possible. They won the Spanish league title, the Spanish Cup, the UEFA Champions League, the Spanish Super Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the World Club Championship, making them the undisputed champions of Spain, Europe and the world.

From the Camp Nou, we took the metro across to the north-east part of the city, to Gaudi's Parc Guell. In 1910, the industrialist, Eusebio Guell commissioned Gaudi to lay out a private housing estate on a hillside above Barcelona. The plan was to create a mini-garden city with common amenities, leisure areas and decorative structures, but only two of the houses were ever built. Apparently they looked a little too much like cartoon gingerbread houses for Barcelona's upper class. What was left after the project fell through, however, was one of the most original public spaces ever conceived.

The main entrance of the park, between the two gingerbread houses, leads up to the double staircase. Water trickles from the mouth of the park's famous multi-coloured dragon that presides over the monumental flight of steps. Above the staircase is the Hypostyle Hall, with 86 classical columns, which support the weight of the square above. From the square at the top of Parc Guell, there are sensational views down across the city. The square is surrounded by curved benches all around its edge, all decorated with colourful mosaics.

We sat in the park and had a snack and then wandered through the winding paths, along the "upper viaduct" and to the square. The best part of the park, though, is the mosaic dragon on the steps! Very cool. This place reinforced that we are both huge Gaudi fans!

Following our Parc Guell visit, we headed down to the Sagrada Familia - again. We chose not to go inside, as we had heard that it is not super impressive inside - it is pretty much a construction site - but we checked out the opposite end of the church than that we had seen on our bike tour the day before.

The 'other side' is known as the "Passion Facade", which depicts the suffering and death of Jesus. This facade was completed between 1986 and 2000 by artist Josep Maria Subirachs. It has been a controversial work, as the sculpted figures are very angular and "block-like", often looking sinister. There are 12 groups of sculptures arranged in three tiers on this side of the church and the scenes tell the story in stages. There is a huge amount of detail and artistry in the work, so love them or hate them, you still have to admire the skill involved. The opposite end of the church, that we had seen the previous day, is the "Nativity Facade".

We walked from the Sagrada Familia back down towards the Old Town, past the bull ring, as far as a little tapas bar right across from the Arc de Triomf. We sat outside and enjoyed bread with oil, patatas bravas, croquettes, a type of quiche thing and a jug of sangria for a late lunch. Then we continued through the Old Town, stopping at another bar for a drink, before returning to our hotel to freshen up after a very hot day of sight-seeing.

In the evening, we had dinner at the tapas bar (called Irati) that Megan had found on Saturday (but it was too packed for us to go there then). This time we were earlier and it was not very busy at all. It was a really nice, clean bar with all sorts of different tapas available. You stand at the bar and choose which tapas you want to eat – they are arranged on loads of different plates all down the bar, with each individual piece on a toothpick – and when you are finished, the bar staff count how many toothpicks you have on your plate and charge you accordingly. The food was delicious!

After dinner we went to another of Megan’s stunning finds - a wine bar called Bodega La Palma. It was decorated like an underground wine cellar with brick walls, not much lighting and it had big wooden wine casks stacked along one wall. We bought a bottle of Catalonian red wine called “GR-174” and it was fantastic. We almost bought another bottle…but then we would have had to roll home.

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning we had a bit of a sleep in. Megan wandered down to the La Boqueria market and picked up some breakfast delights – fresh fruit, orange juice, pastries and a ham and cheese baguette. We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel and then set off on a long walk down Las Ramblas. Right at the bottom of Las Ramblas is the Columbus Monument.

The Columbus Monument is a 60m tall monument for Christopher Columbus, at the bottom of Las Ramblas, by the edge of the port, the site where Columbus returned to Spain after his first successful voyage to the Americas. At the top of the column is a 7m tall bronze statue, depicting Columbus pointing out towards the “New World” with his right hand and holding the scroll in his left hand. Construction of the monument was completed in 1888.

Beyond the Columbus Monument is one end of the new Port Vell, a 1992 Olympic Games creation. A brand new wooden pedestrian bridge, nicknamed the “Rambla de Mar” connects Las Ramblas with the Maremagnum, a complex with shops, cinemas, bars and restaurants. Behind the Maremagnum are an IMAX theatre and Barcelona's aquarium. A new palm tree-lined avenue was laid that runs alongside the vast yacht basin of Port Vell. We wandered along the avenue to the other end of Port Vell and continued on to the beach!

It was a fairly cloudy morning, but there were quite a few keen sun-seekers at the beach when we arrived at around 11.30am. The cloud came and went, eventually burning off around 2pm. We were foolish kids and neglected to put sunscreen on until the cloud had burned away – we should know that you still get sunburnt through cloud! So by the end of the day we were both a little lobster-like!

We lay on the beach for around three hours before moving up to the beach bar (where we had stopped on our bike tour on Sunday) for a late lunch. We couldn’t resist getting some more of the delicious sangria – and sadly they only had 1.5 litre jugs available, rather than 1 litre jugs! We struggled though the large jug of sangria (sarcasm) and enjoyed a tasty lunch, looking out over the beach. It was a very relaxing day and a great way to end our long weekend in Barcelona.

Then we walked back through the city to the hotel to collect our bags and headed for the airport. We had somehow managed to avoid disruption to our flights again – not only from the volcanic ash cloud, but also from British Airways’ ongoing strikes. BA was in the middle of four sets of five-day strikes with a day’s break in between each. Miraculously, our flight to Barcelona fell on the Saturday which happened to be the day’s gap between strikes, and our return flight to London was one of the few flights that BA had managed to run, with their leased aircraft and borrowed crew from other airlines. Very nice.

Next trip: A week long Balkans adventure at the end of June!