Barcelona
We flew out at the end of February and booked into the Hotel Catalonia Princesa – a 3 star central hotel. We arrived in the evening and as it was dark outside, we were directed along the main road by the reception staff to Las Ramblas, the centre of tourism in Barcelona. I was a bit worried as it seemed to take quite a while to reach civilisation. However, on exploring the pedestrianised area beside the hotel the following morning, we discovered that in fact we were really quite central and only 5 minutes walk from Las Ramblas and the Plaza Catalunya. The hotel itself was in a very old building but had recently been renovated and the public areas and rooms were all lovely, breakfast was excellent and the staff were very helpful.
On the morning after we arrived, we headed to the Plaza Catalunya to purchase our ‘hop-on, hop-off’ bus passes. Barcelona is a huge city and it would be impossible to get to see everything in the one day. However, as our time was very limited and we really only had 1 full day, we purchased a day pass and picked out the highlights along the route to visit. We opted to visit the Cathedral ‘Sagrada Familia’ the famous unfinished Cathedral designed by Gaudi and Park Guell featuring lots of Gaudi’s work. We also decided to do a tour of Camp Nou, Barcelona's football stadium so that we could boast to the kids back home that we had been there!
The Cathedral was amazing and I cannot imagine it ever being finished. I really felt for the workmen as I cannot see how they could get any job satisfaction from a job that they will never see completed. Park Guell on the other hand was absolutely gorgeous – a small piece of ‘calm’ in the midst of the city and the views of the city from the terrace at the top of the park were wonderful. We sat for ages on the unusual multi-coloured tiled mosaic seats admiring the view.
After lunch – tapas at a typical Spanish restaurant along the fashionable Paseo de Gracia - we headed for Camp Nou and spent a pleasant hour there admiring the Clubs trophies and exploring the grounds. On the way home, we did a bit of shopping – Barcelona has some wonderful shops and prices were much cheaper than at home – and we then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening.
We enquired at reception for the name of a good, typical Spanish restaurant in the Port area. We were actually directed to the Olympic Port area to a fantastic restaurant called La Barca del Samamanca. The restaurant area was huge and it was packed and buzzing. We were given a great table in the middle of all the action and had a fantastic meal. After dinner, we walked around and found ourselves in the middle of a very trendy spot. There were loads of really modern bars fronting on to the beach such as The Ice Bar and the Carpe Diem Lounge. This area is definitely the spot for the ‘beautiful’ people!
After a couple of drinks in one of the local bars there, we headed back to Las Ramblas which was still alive with revellers. We wandered round for a while soaking up the atmosphere and headed back to the hotel at around 3am. We had to leave the hotel at 09.00 later that morning in order to catch our flight home but we decided we would have to return to Barcelona. It was a fantastic city – vibrant with beautiful buildings, great shopping, lovely old streets, restaurants and what we saw was only the tip of the ice-berg. I cannot recommend it highly enough as a great City break destination.