Transiting to Hotel
Ok, here comes another scare that we had luckily forgotten since we didn't take any metro in Seville, and Granada. Limited escalators at metros.
It was around 10-11pm when we reached the Barcelona airport. Got our luggage, and boarded the airport shuttle to the central area, Catalunya.
One thing about the shuttle, it has got this area where you put your luggage at - top or the bottom rack. Of course everyone aims for the bottom where possible and when it was our turn, our luggage was so damn heavy and the top rack since very high up...nevermind, we shall just stand with our luggage (theres a small standing area). Along the bus trip, made a comment to my sis...
"You know, if we ran into accident and the bus fling sideways...those luggage are gonna come flying at where we are standing. We gonna get smashed into pulp waha".
Reached and found the metro station, and lol, I totally forgot the scare with the metro and stairs and limited escalator options - we found ourselves dragging the luggage down and up the stairs o.o;;;;;
I was lagging behind while my sis was way far in front, and I was tugging and heaving, some passengers were very nice to offer help right away ^-^ very thankful to the very kind community here.
So we were changing from this metro line to that metro line - again more scares cos every line you change you get to meet the stairs again. :P. Then come the final crackdown - theres no train - all closed! Taxi ~ Oh I am so glad we finally took a taxi lol.
So one tip - if you were going anywhere with your luggage, don't try the train - unless its a teeny weeny light luggage. Just taxi ;P I mean for travel yeah...
Again, really kudos to the drivers here, every one of them helped us with the luggage - and they aren't light... super thankful to them.
19/11 - Day 9
Sagrada Familia
Come the grand morning for our first itinerary at Barcelona - the Sagrada Familia. Meanwhile we walked a little distance from our hotel, and spotted some of the possible souvenirs like Jamon. And that day, the morning was warmer as compared to other places we had been to.
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| Small shot of one of the facade of Sagrada Familia |
An hour later, we gathered at the tour guide area, and began the tour. And really, you must either get a guide or read up the information on this temple. Summing up, there were 4 facade, Birth, Death, Glory, Passion. The building itself is still under construction due to its rather dramatic history. If I remembered correctly, only 2 were finished, and the 3rd facade was due to finish in the next 10 years (possibly 2025?). Our guide recommends to come and revisit because the building will evolve through generations of architect and we will be able to admire different architect's work. Its a unique piece of its own, and of course, we would wanna see the the third facade too.
Just based on this building alone and the guide's words, yeah 2025 - we shall be back.
Lunch - La Tasqueta de Blai
Next up, lunch. It was a long walk, and quite a bit of stairs/uphill.
This restaurant/bar serves tapas, and all tapas were just placed on the counter, so you just walked up and pick the most appealing ones ^^.
Can you see the plates with toothpicks displayed on the bar counter?
Those were yummy, and I like this take-and-eat kinda style, especially when you are hungry. Afterwards, just help arranges those toothpicks that came with the tapas on a plate nicely so that they can calculate the cost.
Castell de Montjuic
Next, take a bus to Castell de Montjuic. Here, my sis took me on a rather long ride as we ended up going towards the wrong direction o.o; Alighted and waited another 10 mins before the next bus comes. And yet again, we go off a stop earlier, and had to walk up the long winding road before we reach our destination. x_x
This is like a fortress and its front is very pretty - the greens are very green, and the browns are very medieval brown.
Very nice and medieval place for tons of photos.
Was a good 2 hours spent.
Picasso Museum
There were some memorable pieces we saw here, but we don't really know art so...I felt we kinda wasted some time there :X
But we like the Les Pigeons definitely, I got some of those postcards home as souvenirs :D
Dinner - Maccaroni
Muahaha I voided the plan to find Bacao Burger (original dinner plan). They serves Italian cuisine, mainly pasta (only?). The unique experience here is - select your type of pasta, sauces, and any additional topping for your pasta.
The staffs here were super friendly and kept checking on us like "hows everything?!". ^-^ Totally recommend this place.
Own Time Own Target
We had some time left and took to a little shopping at the district we were at. Afterwards, heading back to hotel region, found a mart, bought some water, and the next day breakfast. ^-^
20/11 - Day 10
We began the day with a quick breakfast: stuff bought from nearby mart ie sandwiches and I had to finish the Piononos that I bought from Granada. Heads up, if you don't like sweet stuff, I don't recommend trying Pionono. So far my experience with them, despite reading that they are the must-try-from-Granada, has ended as too-uber-sweet-for-my-preference. So at Granada I picked up the box of Piononos, there were like 8 of them, 2 for each day. x_x No-uh, lets just finish them all and not see it again.
After which, our itinerary for the day begins.
Parc Guell
One of the main architectural sights by Gaudi. I can't really remember how did we reached there but sis took me for a long bus ride then followed by tons of walk and tons of stairs. And it is really scary when I look up those stairs - the good news, theres one elevator that goes up - no elevator to come back down. I seriously don't hope we have to trace back here after we were done with Parc Guell.
So, we reached Parc Guell, and then it dawned upon us, there are buses that comes right up here, and there is more than one entrance to Parc Guell. Sis sure know how to pick the challenging ones. Lol! xD
I thought the best things here were
- broken tiles that were "embossed"(?) the wavy seats
- a main place with those really weird pillars (@.@ I sucks at describing)
- chameleon sculpture
It was super hard to get a good picture of the chameleon you see, we just wanted the chameleon not a photo with it - but everyone else seems to think otherwise. 360 degrees of posture with the chameleon wasn't enough and so I don't remember me myself waiting out for it. There were some fountains nearby with froggies and that was cute as well. I shall check if I got a picture of that.
Parc Guell as summarized, I love those broken tiles design. But I don't feel that I would be coming back though. ^^
Lunch - Las Delicias
So now to exit Parc Guell find the bus and take it to our lunch spot - we went out through a wrong exit and detoured tons of times to finally find the bus. Anyhoo, we got into Las Delicias which was rather quiet at the bar area, and we sat in their dining room (we were the only ones there!!!!)
While going through their menu, I saw the very one thing I know I must have...IBERICO SECRETO!!! Oki, if you see Secreto on menu, ditch everything else and just have that!
Muchhhh enjoyed!
Colonial Guell
After lunch, we got ourselves back into a train station to make our way to Colonial Guell. Lol oki here the stupid thing I recommended that we did, and nearly cost us a ton. We needed to purchase ticket for another metro line and at the ticket machine, I decided that we should just get one-way. Well like, the train station on the other side would have a ticket machine and we could get another ticket to come back. So we happily proceeded with one-way ticket...and the Train Ticket Story here on continues later.
So while heading there we followed the signs that were located for tourist convenience to bring us into Colonial Guell. At one spot, we nearly went off the wrong path and the security guard just right across the road signal to me and lol (its quite a funny exchange across the street haha :D), gahhh I could always remember how nice everyone in Spain were <3. We went right back on track and continue our journey into the Colonial Guell.
You know, when looking back at these photos, I feel like I was in a gingerbreadman world? I mean, those buildings looks really yummily-awesome~
Colonial Guell is a really nice and quiet neighbourhood to explore and every thing here looks really unique on its own. Not many tourist while we were there and the entire place was just for us to explore freely. We had the audio guide, so I listen and bring my sis everywhere while she snaps photo. ^^
I think the best part of Colonial Guell would be the crypt. It is super super super amazing for just one tiny detail:
While we were inside the lady there was super nice to help us take a photograph, advise on the audio guide number to listen to (we forgot while we were there!). Then then, come the bombastic thing... a tourist group came inside the crypt and began introducing the structure, the lady very nicely went to pull open the window flaps so that there were light...and the tourist group goes "woahhhh..."
That was seriously very very amazing! Each window has different colour effect and the following photo wasn't added with any filter - it just looked amazing. Just wait till you see the window grills from outside!
Lol, after which we went onto the top of the crypt and camwhore tons lolol xD.
The only area we didn't manage to complete within the Colonial Guell was one odd area (...torres something..?) that we managed to see while afar, but going close up, how-the-hell-can-we-get-there??? This really odd place looked like a tower, but we couldn't find any way to get in there x_x
Exiting Colonial Guell, we went back to the train station and thats where we continue our Train Ticket story:
We got a one-way-ticket previously. So now we had to get another ticket to get back to the city center. The problem is...where is the ticketing machine!?!?!?!
Zomg.
So, no ticket machine, we were outta ways, just curiously enough we had 2 tickets that can only be used in the main city area's metro system. So just hoping that would work we inserted our ticket each.
Sis inserts - fail
Me insert - o.o; it work!? We entered happily, and shortly sped back to the city center.
Next, upon exiting the train station, we needed to use a ticket to exit. Our ticket do not work. Oh hey theres a ticket machine nearby. Which says, "Fine 50 Euro" or something alike. *jaw dropped*.
50 euro is a lot of food. Like 2 meals for me and sis ;_;
I can say our luck still hadn't run out and the locals are really super awesome - an officer came up to us to check on us. He took our "wrong" tickets swiped it twice into the gates and let us exit. Out of confusion I exited and I forgot to say my thanks x_x (why you so fail!) Lucky for us, we weren't fine and paid a slightly different fare x.x really thankful to everyone we had met so far
Turns out that when we reached, we don't see the machine in sight, but that didn't dawn upon us until we decided to return.
Bouqueria Food Market
We had a short 30 mins here (or lesser) and basically explored the market produces, and mainly...turrons! We were at this store where the lady was selling it and she was quite entertaining xD using quite a mixture of language ie english chinese spanish she engaged us and teehee, I bought quite a bit from her. ^^
Dinner -
We deviated from our plan and headed to a different restaurant. Thats when money goes flying. For that place, I didn't really enjoyed the service but food was ok. ^^ The highest dinner meal money goes here at 45 Euros. ^^
21/11 - Day 11
Old City - Free walking tour
Our first item on the day was a free walking tour, visiting the Jewish quarters in Barcelona. And this was really enjoyable. A small group of about 10-15 people, our guide kickoff with everyone introducing their home country. ^^ We found some Singaporeans in our group as well.
The tour was quite fun with a little bit of role playing to introduce the legend of the Catalan flag (lols about the hairy guy, and the gruesome 4 red strokes down the Catalan flag).
One additional tip while in shopping in Barcelona was to take note of any shop that has a plaque displayed on their front door step. That means that shop had been opened for more than 70 years, and still opened selling the same thing/service. Rather useful tidbit of information to source out for old specialty shops. I think I will be looking at the floor while going shopping in Barcelona. ^^
Some other interesting thinks she mentioned: some of the bricks on the walls were recycled from gravestones. The following picture, shows one of the stones with hebrew faintly imprinted on it.
All in all, when the tour ended, we gave a tipped the guide and - I highly recommend the tour!
One of the grand exterior of a Gothic Catedral that we passed by during the tour.
Crepes al Born
Our lunch is here! This is rather much of a bar with really funny ideas of "Shots". ^^ Sis and I each picked a crepe for our lunch and I had the Beef Stroganoff.
I wouldn't recommend the stroganoff as the taste is too thick and overpowers the poor crepe. Sis had a simple ham and cheese and that was simply delicious! This bar had some really tacky decorations, and it is a plus for ambience!
My favourite shot of the bar - not sure why the pineapple was doing there ~ tacky~!
Own Time Own Target
After lunch, we headed back to the areas that we had toured previously (old city tour)
There were some markets on selling cheeses, pates, spices and stuff. We only had a quick glance previously and now we are back for more! We found ourselves loading on: cheese, pate, and turrons.
Light shopping and we walked till our legs were weak. xD.
Oh this confectionery I totally recommend it! They have this almond cookies (white-roundish-flaky-looking cookie) which I bought it home - totally awesome! But I totally recommend bringing some plastic containers if you were planning to bring some local cookies home.
Dinner - Cerveceria Catalana
Lol after a super long walk back and forth, I admit was whining much because it was
- super cold
- super tired legs
- super need to pee
We forgot to check the temperature before beginning the day and sis went out strongly without a jacket haha. xD.
At then we were already freezing due to the big cold wind. Who knows the temperature dropped so much at night, plus the big wind hustling us along the way.
We finally found the dinner place after a long walk and we couldn't get a seat inside. So looking at the outside areas there were heater and we didn't mind that...until later.
The heater felt weak.
We sat at the outer-most table, where the wind blows at you first, and there were nothing to block us from it. Shivering, teeth-clacking, we picked up the menu and ordered. We had a small bottle of rose wine which was first placed on the table.
Then to my surprise-shock, the waiter decided to bring along an ice bucket (part of the awesome service).
I was shaking my head "no-need?"
He says, wine is nicer when it is cold. Puts the wine bottle in ice bucket.
X_X We were freezing looool!
But! Back to the thought of food, their grilled prawns and everything else tasted awesome except for tortillas. TORTILLAS WERE SCARY. Don't try it!!!
Wind gets stronger. *teeth clacks louder* Head home! While we wanted very much to shop at along the street, the big cold wind was getting to us. We walked a bit and hide out at the outlets building for a short 5 mins, then goes back out on the street and hop-hide-hop until we reached the train station. xD Unique experience lol seriously memorable but I hope not to do it again. xD
22/11 - Day 12
Checked out from our hotel and headed off to the airport shuttle bus. Lol, then we found shuttle bus stop under modification and had to drag our luggage all to the across 2 streets in the freezing morning. Lol. xD. But all turned out well and we ended up at the airport in no time.
The only frustrating part here was, I was very much planning to shop at Primark at the airport. Just right before the passport check area, there was this elevator that goes down to a shopping zone. o.o; we got weirded out and decided to go on to the passport check thinking that we can end up there later on. But sheeeeeeesh!!! NO SHOPPING AFTER THE PASSPORT CHECK! MY PRIMARK!!!!!!
Yeah I got frustrated :( I was so sosososososososo looking forward to shopping duty free stuff and that airport had lots of shopping stuff too x....x gahhh!
What we had left for shopping was only small duty free shop that offers mainly foodie souvenir. We bought some chorizos and ham from there and teehee at least we had some spanish goodies to enjoy. ^^
We got onto the plane and finally, on our way home. Our flight attendants kindly kept our chorizos and ham in the fridge, super thankful to them for helping us to keep it fresh and cool. <3!
End
