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.
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