Beaches, Gaudi, Gothic Architecture and Octopus

We arrived in late on Sunday night. After going through what might have been the fastest border security check in history we caught a bus to the Plaça d'Espanya which is a short walk from where we are staying. Funny story about where we are staying, halfway though booking our trip we stumbled upon a website called airbnb and subsequently we are actually being hosted by a local Spanish woman in her private apartment (coincidently with another couple from London who also booked on the site). We had a few issues getting access to the apartment when we arrived due to us not having a phone, the apartment not having a buzzer and the host not speaking English when we managed to phone her from a cyber cafe at 12am... but we managed and so far it has turned out great. Our host - Veronica is lovely and we managed to have our first real conversation with her tonight as our London housemates speech Spanish. 

Monument in the middle of Plaça d'Espanya

We got up a little late on Monday morning and did our basic administration (find a grocery store, get groceries, find an information booth, get a map, plan out our itinerary and organize transit etc). The weather was stunning and once we were all set for the day we went for a medium sized walk through downtown Barcelona to Barceloneta Beach. I think being Kiwi's and not having been to the beach since Easter was really getting to us, so it was the first thing on our list. While it is not the prettiest beach in Barcelona (in fact is man made) it was certainly the most accessible and did the trick. We spent most of Monday afternoon lying at the beach and had a quiet evening at the apartment with a homemade dinner, which I think we earned given how much touristing we did in Ireland - everyone deserves a day off.

Barceloneta Beach

Today the weather was odd to say the least. It was overcast and would sporadically rain for about 3min and then stop for half an hour. It was probably a good thing that today was poor weather as we had planned to do a couple of walking tours that we found online. Both tours were based on Barcelona's unique architecture the first focusing on the work of Antoni Gaudi and the second focusing on Gothic Architecture.

The Gaudi tour was really interesting his work really is remarkable and we only saw it from the outsite. Some of his buildings reflect sheer genius while others border on the crazy side. The discussed aspects of his whole life including his devotion to his work and his faith and weaved in interesting aspects of how this related to the details in the buildings he created. The tour took us to four buildings including Palau Güell, Casa Batllo, Casa Mila and epic Sagrada Familia. Which is currently still incomplete (with an estimated 20 years left) after being started in 1882.

Casa Batllo

The Sagrada Familia - one facade at least, with ongoing construction in the background

After a quick stop for a lunch of Salami and cheese on freshly baked bread we headed off to our second tour of the day, the Gothic Tour. Our Irish tour guide (no - not joking) was actually really interesting she was an art historian who did a fantastic job of telling the history of how a small Roman City became what is currently known as Barcelona in a country known as Spain. She also introduced us to Catalonian history and some of the current politics - who know's how much longer Barcelona will be part of Spain. Sounds like a history lecture - well it was. However, it was done using the Roman, Medieval and Gothic archituture in the Barri Gòtic. I found it really interesting to see how the architects refused to remove the previous buidings and would rather add on to them creating what our tour guide called a architectural lasagna.

A sample of Gothic Architecture

The Barcelona Cathedral - Complete with 13 Geese inside (not kidding).

After our tour ended we had dinner with some people we had met during the day (from Canada nonetheless). As we are in Spain we had the local specialty Tapa's and Sangria. So this evening we have eaten octopus, potato's with mayonnaise, deep fried artichoke and some sort of omlette-ish thing with onion and sausage. It's amazing what you order when you can't read the menu. However, it was really tasty - will have to do it again a few times before we leave.