Barcelona Tourist Blog

Upon checking in to our Alitalia flight in Cairo on the Thursday before the marathon we discovered that our return flight had been cancelled and the only way for us to reschedule was to lose a day in Barcelona.  Needless to say, this is not the most pleasant way to begin a trip where you only have five days to travel.  The interesting thing is that the airline did not provide us with this information until I specifically asked about it.  I just had a hunch that our flight may be changed due to the ongoing curfew in Cairo.  What would have happened if we didn’t ask?  Anyway, combining this disappointment with the fact that Alitalia served us the worst food we’ve ever had on an airplane, and none of their flights had any entertainment, we decided that we would pay more for a flight in the future to avoid flying with them again.

We arrived in Barcelona around midnight, transferred to our hotel, and hit the sack.  The next morning we headed down for the hotel’s complimentary buffet breakfast before heading out to explore the city.  Unfortunately, one of the biggest pieces of advice that we received about running marathons was to stay off your feet for the days preceding the race.  The question is, how do you explore an amazing city like Barcelona while staying off your feet?  In the end we decided to take the metro as much as possible on the Friday and take a double-decker tour on the Saturday.  This is not the way we normally explore a city but we don’t normally run marathons either.

                                                                                                  

Inside Sagrada Família

Our first stop was the famous Sagrada Família.  This was by far the most interesting church that I have ever entered.  The entire main section of the basilica is open space with clear windows and impressive pillars.  It really felt like being in an indoor park.  I’ve never been into a church that wasn’t full of pews.  The exterior façade of the building is also super-interesting with the modern Passion Façade contrasting with the more organic Nativity Façade.

Part of the Passion Façade

Part of the Nativity Façade

After leaving the church, we headed to the marathon expo to pick up our race kits before taking a walk down the famous La Rambla to soak up the atmosphere.  We didn’t find it particularly warm but there were still enough people eating and drinking in the open air cafés.  I think Katie’s favourite part of the walk was the street performer, who was dressed in white and covered in white makeup, sitting on a toilet on a platform alternating between various comical facial expressions (unfortunately I didn’t take a photo).  We had a dinner of vegetable paella in a tourist restaurant before ending the day at the Musical Fountain at Plaça d'Espanya.  The fountain was very cool and the “show” was set to a variety of extremely cheesy music but we enjoyed standing on the bridge watching the changing patterns and colours.

Musical Fountain

Saturday began with the Breakfast Run organized by the Marathon Committee (our “Marato Barcelona” blog entry contains the details of this event).  After the run we took a double-decker bus tour around the city.  There were a few minor hiccups with the tour but we were generally quite satisfied with the experience.  We ended our day with a pasta dinner with the other members of our running group.  It was Carnival in Barcelona while we were there and there was a children’s parade on the street we walked down to get to the restaurant.  It was quite the spectacle.  I stopped to take some photos and got separated from our group for quite some time before I finally found the restaurant.  I will spare you the details of that frustration.  Anyway, it was early to bed on Saturday night so that we could be well rested for the marathon the next morning.

 

Sunday was the day of the marathon and Katie has summarized it in our “Marato Barcelona” blog entry.

Catedral de Barcelona

Arc de Triomf

Monday was our last day in Barcelona (stupid Alitalia) and we took advantage of the fact that we were now “allowed” to walk around (although it may have looked more like we were waddling around).  We explored the Gothic Quarter and went into the Catedral de Barcelona.  We walked around the Palau de la Musica Catalana and the Arc de Triomf.  We had a picnic in Gaudi’s Parc Güell before heading to see the exterior of La Pedrera and then going into La Casa Batlló.  We found Gaudi’s work to be extremely interesting and really enjoyed the audio guide at La Casa Batlló.  As the day was drawing to an end, we rushed to the Museu de la Xocolata where we heard that the entrance ticket is a chocolate bar and the café serves an unforgettable chocolate drink.  Both rumours proved to be true.  The ticket was a delicious dark chocolate chocolate bar and the drink was so thick that it was almost like drinking warm chocolate pudding.  We also learned that the Aztecs used cacao beans as currency and the price of a rabbit was the same as the price for “the favours of a prostitute”.  Who comes up with these things?!?  Anyway, we ended our day with a much tastier paella in a more authentic Spanish restaurant.

Tuesday morning we headed to the airport bright and early for our return trip to Cairo.  Our Barcelona adventure was a little too short but we will definitely head there again when we get an opportunity to explore Spain.

Parc Güell

La Casa Batlló

La Pedrera

What a ticket!?!