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Bubulle's weblog, Random bits from Christian Perrier
Christian Perrier
christian@perrier.eu.org
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Thu, 05 Jun 2008
[life] Barcelona rocks
(update with right spellings for Catalan names, thanks Guillem)
So, we (Elizabeth and /me) spent four days in May-end in Barcelona...without my laptop. That was already 2 weeks ago but it took me time to cook this blog entry..:-)
Indeed, we enjoyed that a lot. That city is deeply appealing and friendly, and welcoming, and etc.
Elizabeth found a good, though expensive, hotel in the city center, close to La Rambla (career Junta de Comerç for those who care)....but far enough from La Rambla's noise..:-)
The city is of course full of tourists...just like us...but, in some way, it absorbs the "load" very well and it doesn't look like the Touristorama that Paris turns into from May to September, for instance.
It probably comes from the city having several interesting places to go without hard "hot spots" where all international buses of hurried folks run around like a sheep cattle...:-)
Of course, we went to the "famous" places and, well, we enjoyed them a lot.
For instance, the city hot spot, namely La Sagrada Familia... I wouldn't really have guessed that I would enjoy it that much. I was expecting something crazy and full of religious crap, just like Paris' "Sacre Coeur". I actually found a marvel of modern architecture. The portal of Passion is....astonishing and its modern sculpture framework is full of emotion. The inside, though still under huge work left me thrilled. That forest of pilars, the size of the ceiling and the elegance of all this is....wonderful. Really, I hope I'll live enough to see the end of this. We spent more than 4 hours there...
La Rambla is as well somethign one has to enjoy. Of course full of crappy tourist-oriented stuff....but also a really living place and a place where one just want to "ramble on".
We visited Park Güell on Friday with the best weather we had. Just sitting there on the terrace and enjoy the sun and some music by a quite good trumpetist was a great first introduction to the week-end.
We wandered a long time around Montjuich hill, enjoying the view on the city. Definitely a place I would love running in if I was a Catalan.
We also wandered through Gràcia which was a separate village in the past, though close to city's center. Nice walk in small places. Go there on evenings.
The Musuem of the City's history is also a place to go. Great visit of remainings of the Roman and post-Roman city, under places just near to the cathedral.
We were also lucky to see the Corpus Christi procession with Giants and related things (interrupted by rain, unfortunately) as well as attend a local "sardane" contest on a small place close to the cathedral on Saturday. Just friendly and nice being sitting there.
We also went on some event I have no idea about, which featured some kinds of "fratenities" of people in a procession, with many giant flags (I mean *really giant*: about 5-8 meters high and held by one single person). We followed them for 1-2 kms in the avenues around the University after seeing them from the bus...:-)
Barcelona's transport system is great. We had the great idea to buy "Barcelona cards" which just give you free access to bus, trains, metro, tram and several reduced fees to museums and such other places. This way, we could go around the city without walking too much and be too tired... If you do so some day, just use busses. They go everywhere, are very fast and they come often, even on Sundays. The metro is faster but you don't see the city. My favourite bus line is 24.
Another option is the bicycle rental system. It seems fairly easy to use and, just like Paris V'lib, you find bicycles everywhere. Just remember that you'll ride in Spain (the same stands for Paris...) so buy eyes for all around your head.
I still have so many things to say about Barcelona, but I want to complete that blog entry. In short, go there and enjoy. It deserves it.
Ah, and if you live in Barcelona (and are not veg'), just try the "Biblioteca" restaurant in Junta de Comerço (I hope I remember the name well...anyway there are not that many restaurants in that street). We went there two nights in a row just because we wanted to try more stuff from their great menu..:-).
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