2 Days Short of a Week (in Barcelona)

So back in February Beth & I had a much needed 5 day break in the Catalan capital, Barcelona. (As usual my blogging speed needs to improve, apologies for the 3 month delay)

An early flight meant us staying overnight near Gatwick (Best Western Skylane) and an pre-dawn start. However after checking in we had time to relax in the "No.1 Lounge" which thanks to my Barclays Travel Pack Plus was free for both of us.

Gatwick is certainly becoming a much nicer airport to fly from with the refurbishments that are happening. This being the first time I had flown from the South Terminal in over 12 years, I was pleasantly surprised with how open and free flowing it was. 

As always our flight with British Airways was a pleasant experience, however it was disappointing to discover that they had discontinued complimentary food and drink in Economy and slightly annoying that you could only pay by card or Avios points (I may have a rant about this in a later blog). However a prompt departure from Gatwick and a "favourable tailwind" meant us landing in Barcelona almost half an hour early leaving us plenty of time to explore some of the city before checking into our hotel.

After dropping our bags off at the left luggage at Sants station, we headed to Placa Catalunya for a walk down Barcelona's main tourist street, La Rambla, towards the sea and our next destination, the Maritime Museum.

The Museu Marítim de Barcelona is located next to the port of Barcelona and is housed in the former Medieval shipyards. The museum covers the history of the Spanish Navy from the 15th century to the present day and also housed an interesting exhibit on Trasmediterranea to celebrate the shipping company's centenary. 

One of the exhibits in Museu Marítim de Barcelona

The folllowing day we started off by doing a sightseeing bus tour. I always find these are a great way to see a city and find out lots of interesting facts. Plus, with a 24 or 48 hour hop on-hop off tickets and the fact the routes go near all the tourist hot spots, they're a great way to get around. We usually choose the 'City Sightseeing' one, and in Barcelona their ticket included 2 tour routes (there's a 3rd during the summer months)

We jumped off near Barcelona Cathedral (not Gaudi's Basilica) which is an incredibly impressive building and well worth a visit. This was followed by a visit to the Barcelona City History Museum which has a huge area of Roman ruins in the lower levels and is set out so that you can essentially walk around the Roman streets. If you are interested in history, it's certainly worth a visit!

Barcelona Cathedral

For lunch we visited Succulent, which had been recommended in one of the guide books. Unfortunately although the food was delicious, the prices were high, especially for the amount of food on the plate. Personally I'd only give our visit to Succulent 3*.

Friday once again started with the remainder of the bus tour which took us to the north-east of the city and our main destination for the day, Park Güell. This park consists of both a large area of open gardens, including some viewing areas with stunning views over the city, and the Gaudi designed 'Monumental zone'. This latter area includes incredible mosaics and some incredible looking buildings.

One of the mosaics in Park Güell

Our final full day in Barcelona was a busy one, starting at the bottom of La Rambla with a trip to the top of Colom Columbus. This 60m high monument to Christopher Columbus was built for the 1888 Universal Exhibition and grants wonderful views over the harbour. Following a walk round the harbour to Barcelonetta, we took the cable car across to Miramar on Mont Juic. 

Originally we had planned to take a trip to the top of Mont Juic, however due to the timing of our visit, the second cable car to the summit was undergoing it's annual maintenance. Choosing to avoid the replacement bus, we walked around the side of the hill, and were able to take an impromptu look around Barcelona's Olympic Stadium. 

 Barcelona's Olympic Stadium & Olympic Torch

We spent the the remainder of the afternoon exploring Pobel Espanyol. This mock village includes designs of architecture copied from the various regions of Spain and was built for 1929 International Exposition. We unfortunately only had about 2 hours to explore, however we could have easily spent twice that properly looking at all the buildings and discovering more about the various Spanish regions. Pobel Espanyol is certainly in a prominent place on the 'somewhere to visit again' list.

Some of the buildings in Pobel Espanyol

We finished the day with a visit to Barcelona's Arc de Triomf. This arch is another piece of Barcelona built for the 1888 Universal Exhibition and was the main access gate to the exhibition area. It now leads to Park Ciutadella which replaced the exhibition area. Our evening was spent at a lovely little tapas bar, Onafre, which we found near the Gothic quarter. Onafre had a marvellous selection of food and drink at very reasonable prices and had a lovely rustic atmosphere. I think Onafre has got to get 5* from us.

Arc de Triomf

Sunday was our last day in what is now possibly our favourite city and we thought we would finish it with what could be described as 'THE' reason to visit Barcelona, the Sagrada Familia. Gaudi's masterpiece, which has still not been completed nearly 100 years after his death stands prominently to the north of the city centre. Both of us were blown away with how light and open the inside of the building is, considering how 'dark' the outside can look. Unfortunately we were unable to go up the towers for safety reasons as there was a bit of breeze, however this just gives us another excuse to visit again.

Inside La Sagrada Familia

Our final meal was at a lovely restaurant in El Born called, Artisan, which had a great, well priced, set menu which left us both feeling extremely full. Unfortunately I can't find a website however it is on Tripadvisor here. I think a 5* rating is well deserved as we got more than we expected with the set menu for less than we had prepared to pay.

Bascillica da Santa Maria del Mar and the El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria filled our final couple of hours in Barcelona, with the former being another magnificent Gothic church, with some amazing stained glass windows and the latter being an old market hall, containing exhibits on the history of Barcelona and the area of El Born along with some amazing ruins.

In summary, Barcelona has earnt a well deserved place in the top two of our favourite cities (it's pretty much a toss up between Barcelona and Athens) and is certainly somewhere everyone should visit if possible. If you do visit, make sure to give yourself enough time (we did 5 days/4 nights and were pushed to fit what we wanted to do in) and to visit slightly later in the year than we did to ensure everything is open. Also, if you do visit and have any further recommendations, please comment and we'll add them onto the 'to do' list.

34 Hours in Zurich

As you may know from Facebook, I recently spent 34 hours in the Swiss city of Zurich. I made this trip as my annual plane spotting 'pilgrimage'. However as it was cheaper to stay overnight than try to fly back the same evening, I decided to spend some time seeing the city itself aswell as the obligatory plane spotting. This is therefore a blog of two halves with the first half covering my exploration of the city and the second being about the spotting.

The first thing to say is that the public transport system in Zurich is expansive with 16 tram routes, plenty of buses and the S-bahn. Unfortunately the ticketing system is rather confusing as the Airport and City are in different zones and although supposedly there was a multi zone day ticket that could be purchased, I couldn't figure out the ticket machine so kept buying single tickets. However this ticketing hiccup aside, I had no problems with either the Tram or S-bahn.

City Exploring

So after a very early breakfast and a 35 minutes tram ride into the city from my hotel in the suburb of Opfikon, I got off the tram at the Bahnhofplatz and decided to walk up the banks of the Linmat to the northern shore of Lake Zurich.

(Side note: I stayed at the Ibis Budget hotel, 5 mins from the airport for anyone interested. Very basic but fine for one night by myself)

This walk took me up part of Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich's main high end shopping street. I crossed over the Linmat and continued up past the Rathaus and Grossmünster. Whilst walking up the east bank I was also able to see the towers of Fraumünster Kirche and St Peter Kirche (more on this Kirche later).

The Towers of St. Peter Kirche and Fraumünster Kirche

As I was passing the Rathaus it began to snow, which whilst making this beautiful city look even more picturesque, did seriously reduce visibility out over the lake. After trying to determine what I could see and warming up for a while with a coffee, I set off back towards the Hauptbahnhof with the intention of visiting the Swiss National Museum aswell as the Grossmünster.

Zurich Rathaus (Town Hall)

Unfortunately the Grossmünster didn't open until 10 am (and at 10 past 9 in heavy snow, I wasn't hanging around) and the National Museum wasn't open on Mondays (and I definitely wasn't hanging around for 24 hours).

A Model of the Grossmünster

Therefore, out of ideas, I headed into the Tourist Information Centre for some suggestions. They provided me with a map and a walking tour of the city (which I had coincidentally already done half on my walk to the lake), and so I headed off south again, however this time staying on the west bank of the Linmat.

The first stop was Lindenhof, an oasis of calm within the city, at one of the highest points within the immediate area, giving wonderful views over the Linmat and a beautiful open space, especially when covered in snow.

Lindenhof

After spending a while walking around the park, I headed out the other side and down the hill towards St Peter Kirche. After my earlier failed attempt to visit Grossmünster, I decided to have a look inside St Peter's. The kirche was decorated beautifully both outside and in, with the clock face (the largest in Europe) gleaming in the sunlight.

St. Peter Kirche

For the rest of the morning I continued to wander through the city, continuing to find suprising areas of peace of tranquillity dotted around, before heading back to the Hauptbahnhof and onwards to the airport.

Spotting

Spotting at Zurich was a painfree experience (which unfortunately cannot always be guaranteed). The airport has two official spotting areas on the roofs of piers B & E. Unfortunately the spot on the roof of pier E is closed during the winter, although this does give me an excuse to make a return trip at somepoint in the future.

Air Chine B747

Access to the area on top of pier B is from 'landside' although you do pass through a standalone security check point to gain access. This again proves that if there is the will, there can be decent spotting locations without compromising security.

USAF C-32

From the viewing area you can see all of the 'B' & 'D' gates and some of the 'A's'. The downside of this location is that some traffic may not be seen depending on the runways in use. The 5CHF charge for access is also the only time I've had to pay for a viewing area but compared to most things in Switzerland is seemed reasonable for the facilities provided.

Thai Airways B777

I was lucky enough to be visiting Zurich on the opening day of the World Economic Forum meaning some interesting visitors including an Air China 747 bringing in the Chinese President and 2 C-32s (Military 757s - think Air Force 2) amongst others.

Ethiopian B737

Viewing location        3*

Charge (5CHF)           3*
Variety of Traffic        4*
ZRH Overall Score     3*

Overall Zurich was well worth the visit for both the spotting and the city itself. I would certainly recommend the city for a weekend break and the airport is certainly on my 'Visit Again' list, although in the summer months next time.