With my birthday approaching and the end of summer closing in Anneliese and I decided it would be the perfect time to visit Barcelona. So we jumped onto the Easyjet website, packed our bags and off we went. We arrived on a wonderfully sunny Friday afternoon and, although missing our stop due to a misinformed Italian, taking two wrong trains and a few wrong streets,we made it to our hostel, situated just a mere stroll from La Rambla and sandwiched in amongst the gorgeous, windy old streets of Barcelona, where shopkeepers still have a smoke on the doorstep and old grandmas hang their washing out over the streets and local boys play soccer down the alleyways. After dumping our bags in our room (although I booked a six person dorm we were put in an 8 person one but we couldn’t find our beds until we took a tiny little corridor at the back of the room where we found a bathroom and two more doors, one leading to our shoebox sized room, wow a room all to ourselves??! If only you could call it a room…) we headed out for a stroll, firstly to the Picasso Museum, which only had an hour until closing time so we gave it a miss, then got caught up in some parades as it turned out that this particular weekend was Fiesta de la Mercè, Barcelona’s biggest annual festival. A bit peckish we decided to find ourselves a nice tapas bar and munched down an incredible meal, although I can’t quite tell you what we ate as the waiter mostly chose it as well as us pointing to some plates on the front counter). It was mindblowingly delicious all the same.
With full bellies we decided to head to the Contemporary Arts Museum, as it was, according to the ever so trusty Lonely Planet, open until midnight Fridays. Unfortunately we got there and it was closed, though we’re not quite sure why. We did try and ask a security guard who, when he say that he didn’t speak much English was, well quite spot on. It wasn’t all terrible as in the square infront of the museum there was a stage set up with a Spanish Freddie Mercury playing numerous Queen cover songs and could sing higher than most females I know. He was astonishing, so unexpectedly incredible. After a few sways and galileos, we headed up to Montjuic to see ‘the magical fountain’. It seemed so did the rest of Barcelona too. We managed to catch the end of the colourful light and water show before climbing (alright taking the outdoor escalators that seem to be everywhere in Barcelona) up to a Spanish castle, now museum I think, that overlooks much of Barcelona before we heard fireworks shooting up into the sky over the beach. What a dream! Bring on the birthday!
The following days to come……..
