I thought it might be a bad sign when the taxi driver had never heard of our airline, Vueling out of Spain. We made it the airport really early after almost missing our flight to Rome. In fact our budget airline did not have any attendants or space at the counter to check bags. After about a thirty minute wait the television above the counter was now showing Vueling. No attendants yet but we are getting closer. We were the first ones in line and made it through security with two hours to spare.
The plan was to sit down and have dinner prior to our late flight. This terminal in Munich only has one option, counter service with overpriced crappy food. 40 euros later and a long line we had food. I think we call this a monopoly in America. The kids are sharing a tablet watching a show waiting for the plane.
The plane ride was smooth but crowded. We were chasing the sunset heading southwest. They have the seats so close together my femur bone literally did not fit between my seat and the seat in front of me. The lights and air usually above each row was not necessarily above you since they had crammed so many rows of seats on the plane. No complimentary beverage included, but you could pay for one. It was all good though, it took off AND it landed, on time too.
For this trip I tried to get the cheapest plane tickets possible. This led to a late night flight to Barcelona and we have a very early morning flight back on Wednesday. Now that I think about it, I paid for two nights at a hotel without getting the benefits of the associated day, to save money on a flight..........need to think about that next time.
The Barcelona airport was crazy, especially for 11PM. The area where passengers exit the baggage claim there were hundreds of people gathered waiting for others to arrive. We had reserved a taxi and I was searching through the dozens of signs drivers were holding up for other people trying to find my ride. I am not sure if this is happening all of the time or what, but it was really busy for such a late evening.
We made it to our hotel and, to my great relief, we had someone let us in to the room. See, this is not a hotel, it is an apartment in a residential area. Coming in this late I just knew we were going to have a problem getting someone to let us in. Most of the hotels in Europe are very small rooms and it is hard to find a room for four people. I have been booking other options and it has worked okay so far. You never really know what you are going to get.
Saturday morning we slept a little late to recover from travel. This apartment is not very close to good restaurants or tourist stuff, but there is a coffee and pastry shop right next door, a grocery store very close, and a pharmacy. We stocked up on a few groceries for snacks and David's breakfast since he will not eat pastries. The rest of us ate a fresh pastry and we headed out. For the first two days we are riding on one of those open air tourist buses. We have never done that before and wanted to see if we like it. Saturday we did the "red" route and I think it worked out pretty well. You can get on and off of these anytime and they come by every five or ten minutes.
The first stop was this palace this is now an art museum. It is on a nice hill overlooking the Placa d'Espanya.
I think we did good coming in April, the weather is great, upper 60's to low 70's and spring is blooming everywhere.
This is my kind of town, escalators all over the place outside to get up and down these hills. These were the steps back up after we rode the escalator down.
Here is the so called magic fountain and the Placa d'Espanya in the distance. I have a photo later from the other direction after we returned from our tour.
Our next stop was another hill close to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and an old fort called Montjuic. We hopped off of the bus and got onto a funicular (a gondola lift) up to the fort/castle.
These turrets were all around the fort walls, I suppose they were needed at one point. The thing about the bus tour was that the relevant information about these sites was minimal. The little voice would come over the headphones and say something like, "what we just passed was the.......". It was too late once we realized it might have been something interesting. Once you are off the bus there is no guide, so we are seeing a lot of cool stuff, but know none of the history.
Above is the fort and below is the view from the walls of it. The view was so so spectacular considering we were looking at a very large commercial port with thousands of containers.
On the ride up the gondola the kids spied several playgrounds on the mountain side. Instead of riding down we walked and hit a few of the play areas on the way. It is hard not to notice all of the little play areas they have all around the city. So far in Europe we begun to think that there are no kids and no places for kids. Barcelona is the for sure exception. Every block has a pharmacy, grocery, coffee and pasty shop, and at least one play ground. All of the major streets have a bike path and walking area that is almost as wide as the car lanes. From what we have heard it sounds like the 1992 summer Olympics completely change this city for the better. Before then living by the sea was a bad area, today it has been completely revitalized and it all looks great.
The kids have enjoyed the trip so far since they have had multiple chances to play. The below shot shows these slides up the hill with another play area below them.
Back on the bus we headed down the coast to another area called Port Vell. On the way we saw the above Christopher Columbus Monument and there is also a pedestrian bridge dedicated to him. Port Vell is mostly a shopping mall with restaurants. Below was our view during our overpriced lunch. The food was not that good, but we paid for the view.
After another bus stop in the true city center, very touristy area, we walked through the narrow streets. We happened on the Picasso Museum pictured below, although this was one of many courtyard entrances. It was a very large museum that continued down the block for a good ways. We did not go in, not really art museum types here in this group.
This is Barcelona Cathedral, one of two large Gothic churches.
Above was the end of the bus route at Placa de Catalunya. This appears to be the busiest square in the city center on the north end of La Rambla, a very wide walking and shopping area. Better pictures of this later on the trip.
There are several large art pieces like the one above throughout the city.
At the end of the day we made it back to our origination site where you can see the art museum on the hill and the other side of the magic fountain. Yes, I was standing in the middle of the street to get this shot. On the other side is the Place d' Espanya area with the Arenas de Barcelona, where I think the taxi driver told us housed bull fighting.
Friday night we did as the Spaniards, and waited until very late for dinner. After an exhaustive search we walked over a kilometer to get to a restaurant that had good Google user reviews. Man was it good, best dinner in a long, long time. Our dinner the last night in Budapest last October has been the gold standard, this one gave it a run. The place was really busy so we went back out front and asked the waiter for a table out there. He pointed us to a four top on the end. Instead of trying to figure out what to order we played it a little different. We told the waiter we do not know anything about tapas, the famous Spanish small portion food. He basically told us to trust him, and he will select several tapas and bring them to us to share. He did really good. We are big fans of La Flauta Restaurant. We strolled back to the apartment and got to bed for our next full day.
So I did it, I blogged during mid trip from the apartment. What do you think? More present tense than usual I think, but maybe the details are more fresh? The upload is painfully slow on the pictures, but we can deal with that.
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