Barcelona

Spain. I love the feel of this country, love the concept of siesta, love the fact that everyone is so chilled out, love the fact that in the middle of a financial crisis also they manage to party every night (I'm not the party types, but I just love the fact that they can do it without caring about logic). 

As soon as we got out of the metro station at the Plaza de Catalunya in Barcelona, we could feel that the city is alive! Our hostel was very close to the main street, Las Ramblas and walking to the hostel, it really reminded me of India and how there are just so many people there, working, partying, shopping, eating and eating some more. It just has a very nice feel to it and frankly trying to do Barcelona in just 2-3 days is not fair.

The day we reached, it was already quite late, so we just went out to have some Tapas and then catch a pub crawl. Tapas is an interesting concept. Basically they drink a lot in Spain and the poor who can either afford a drink or food also choose drinks over food. So at some point of time the king ordered that every bas has to give some “Tapas” (or small dish in a plate covering the bottle or glass) with the drink, so that they don’t drink empty stomach. This reduced the number of drunkards and improved productivity. So basically this started the concept of a small dish called Tapas. So tapas can be anything, fries, fish, prawns or whatever. Anyways the pub crawl was a different experience altogether. Ideally its supposed to have loads of people going from one pub to another drinking together and getting to know each other. The pub crawls of Barcelona aren’t really famous, but its night life is so we went for it anyways. It was a small group, probably because it was a Thursday night, but we liked it nonetheless. We got to meet some interesting people and ended up spending quite a bit, cause well, u get free shots, but courtesy sakes you also have to buy some booze in these bars. So we went to 3 pubs and ended in a club. Frankly, I wouldn’t do it again, but then I’m really not the clubbing types.

The next day, we decided to walk around Barcelona, just like we did in Rome. I generally like walking cities and this turned out to be one as well. We went straight for Las Ramblas, since we had to cross it every time we went to our hostel, we didn’t bother to spend time there, it was more of a get the feel of the place type thing and that either takes 10 minutes or 10 days. So we went to the Bucharia market, which was pretty good. It’s a bit like the INA market in Delhi, only better and smaller. You get everything from fish to chocolates to juices. You can buy it and take it home or you can eat it there as well, there are many small shops for that. It’s a busy market in the heart of the city and although it might be a tourist trap, I guess it’s ok to just go there and have a small meal once.

We didn’t have a small meal there however, this was because one of my friends had suggested another place, Irati, close to Las Ramblas. So we headed in that direction, but before going there, we went into the Bari Gottic area. Honestly, at the time we didn’t know that was the Bari Gottic area, we just strolled in the place and kept looking at the architecture. It’s supposed to be gothic in style, but we didn’t really know what gothic was so didn’t really try to think about it and we had no research on our side either. We walked around and ended in the restaurant, Irati. It was a Tapas bar and was very good. It had a lot of variety and was on the expensive side, but frankly was worth it. I really liked the concept of pay per toothpick that they had used. It allowed for variety and also offered very good Tapas. After a light lunch, we headed towards Sagrada Familia. On the way we had a good look at many architectural marvels by Gaudi. I’m generally not the least bit interested in art and all this stuff, but it was genuinely different. Gaudi was inspired by nature and you can actually see that in his work. It’s very unique and the common theme of nature runs through it all.

Sagrada Familia is also designed by Gaudi and is really quite amazing. It has been under construction for god knows how many years and probably will remain under construction for long. When you think about it, Gaudi designed it such that it would never be completed in his lifetime, but still went ahead with it. It’s kind of weird starting something and never getting to see its end result. In any case, the structure is grand and the church is made like a forest, with the pillars designed to be tree trunks and fruits at the top which can be seen from the outside. It really took us by surprise, since it’s not a church that is talked about a lot, but is much more important than what most people think.

After the church, we walked to Parc Guell, this is on the mountains and once again, designed by Gaudi. This is where he gets to combine architecture with nature completely and does a good job of it too. But the main point of the park is not that, it’s the views that you get of the city. You can get to the top of the mountain and basically it’s just a nice place to sit and it sort of divides Barcelona into 2 parts so you can see the other as well on the other side. When we got out of the park, it was getting late and the rain was getting heavier. We rushed back to the hostel and basically that was it for the day.

The next day, we headed off to Montserrat. This is outside Barcelona and takes about an hour to get to the base by train, if you don’t miss any connections. As it turned out, we watched our train leave in front of us, we missed it cause the station is a bit confusing and you need an extra buffer of 10 minutes at least to get to the platform. Anyways, from the base it’s another 30 odd minutes to the top. Apart from being a nice natural structure, it also has a lot of significance when it comes to Catalan culture. In the days of Franco, the Spanish dictator, Catalan intellectuals used Montserrat to sustain their culture when Franco was trying to suppress it. It’s the home to the Black Madonna, which is inside a church. We actually managed to see a Christian wedding at the church, this was a first for me so was quite nice. Another interesting part is that you can trek around the area and that is quite nice, if you have time. We didn’t have much time, so we went on the shortest trek there to a small house and since we were doing it in a hurry, we were sweating like pigs by the time we finished. The trek was actually quite a tough one and ideally we should have taken our time with it. Anyways, when we got back, we had a shit lunch at the cafe on Montserrat and headed back to the city.

Once back in the city, we had to check out the magic fountains and the village that they had made in 1929 as a showcase of an ideal Spanish village. But we were late and the entrance fee for the village was like 7-8 Euros. So we didn’t go in, cause we would have only got like 10-15 minutes there. We went to the fountains at 7pm though and although they were nice and different, they weren’t as large scale as we had hoped for and it was more of a Disney showcase. As in it was nice, but is probably targeted towards kids.

After the fountain, we headed towards Camp Nou to watch Barca in action against Mallorca. We were quite enthusiastic about the event and went in thinking its the largest football stadium in the world (we later found out that the largest is in Calcutta!). The atmosphere was quite nice, but Messi was not playing, which was a disappointment and then even Xavi was out. Nonetheless, Barca scored 5 goals in 46 minutes! .. and then pulled out all their star players. They didn’t score after that and although the crowd was enthusiastic, I was expecting more. Frankly, I felt that cricket fans make more noise than that. Maybe it was because the match was not really a critical one. Frankly, I would say, chuck the Camp Nou experience, just go for a good match if you want to watch crazy fans. The stadium doesn’t really matter as long as people are shouting like crazy and if they are doing that in an AC Milan match, then that should be the one to watch.

After the match ended, we headed towards the metro expecting chaos, because well that’s what these fans are known for, but we realised that it was all just too organized, everyone in queues and just very dull. Maybe its because Camp Nou is just full of tourists and its not the fans anymore. Anyways, it was still quite nice and a fitting end to our short stint in Barcelona.