The day started at 6 AM after a fairly decent sleep of 5 hours. Hot shower and emails to mom followed by breakfast at 8 AM occupied the time I spent inside the hostel. It was filling breakfast of cereals, bread with nutella and orange juice and this was perfect to kick start the day. I have seen beautiful sun sets where the sky is splashed around with a hue of colors, but this was the first time I was treated to a painted morning sky.
The first place of visit was Sagrada Familia. This is a famous architectural structure built by the renowned Antonio Gaudi. I will write more about Gaudi after tomorrows in-detail visit to one of his master pieces. Sagrada Familia was started in 1882 and was left incomplete due to his untimely death. Further constructions were also disrupted due to the Spanish civil war. This church is yet to be completed and is expected to take yet another decade, but still this is one of the most visited places in Barcelona. My want to go inside was cut at point blank by the expensive entrance fees of 12E!
Having navigated with ease with the city map in Brussels and Krakow, I thought we could walk to the next Gaudi architecture with ease. Let Spanish and Catalan be praised, we lost of way in spite of the detailed map I had in hand. The reason, the street names are so similar, even the parallel streets. Carrer Maria and Carrer Mariana and the likes ran parallel causing a retinal malfunction leading to disorientation of directions!! Anyways, these things happen for the best.
So, we figured out the nearest metro station and headed straight to La Rambla (more on this street tomorrow) where we had to meet at the Travels Bar to start our free walking tour of the Gothic part of the city. I am not going to write in details about what I saw during this walk, for I want to do this in detail with the pictures posted along side. But the history is fascinating and seriously, if my history teacher had made our classes as wonderful as our guide did, I would have probably taken up history as my main subject!
Our walk group consisted of nine people, 4 from India, 3 from Mexico and 2 from Australia. I liked the way our guide made us interact with each other to make it a well knit group and not the known people talking their own language during the tour. It did rain, but I only now I think about it, I actually remember that it rained! The 2 hour walk through the Gothic quarter ended with lovely Sangria. This is a typical spanish wine punch with sliced fruit, sweetener and brandy. Await the surprise blog regarding this on Sunday morning (27.12.2009)!!
Lunch was in a small vegetarian eatery, Maoz. It consisted of a custom made falafel, exactly th same I ate in Amsterdam. Not wasting time we took the metro and then the funicular up to the Montjuic castle, the highest point in Barcelona. The sunset was imposing upon the city. Yet again, detailed description will be given along with pictures as soon as I touch base in Germany!
Walking down the hill, we located the place we want to visit tomorrow and also confirmed our reservation to the event I had book for. Dinner consisted of dough nuts and a lovely Mexican Desperado (Beer with tequila) and 1L of Pineapple juice that I purchased from the supermarket.
So, what is the place I located to visit tomorrow and what is the event I attend? Also, what does the Sangria hold as a surprise?! Tune in again to indulge in Barcelona through me!
3 comments:
hmmm! lovely walking through the streets and also getting lost in them! eagerly awaiting day 3!!! :D cheers!!1
comment on - "But the history is fascinating and seriously, if my history teacher had made our classes as wonderful as our guide did, I would have probably taken up history as my main subject!"
REALLY???????
remember our history teacher was very adept at teaching the subject exactly they way it shouldnt be taught. i remember her coming to class and asking us to prepare for a flight to her imaginative description of historical blunders (better to consider life a blunder! + history repeats itself). and i am sure that even if she had taken you outside to teach you history, you would still end up taking science! :P
but yeah, its really fascinating to take up history and learn all the stories of the places(please do include local rumours!).
you know Vivek, all I remember of during the history classes was the forced upon prayer we used sing and the pitiful general discussions. Not to forget the pages and pages of notes she used to dictate!
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