Barcelona : Day 5 : 19 Oct 2008

Skipping the balance days in Paris, I jump straight to introduce my next destination; Barcelona, Spain. This was my 2nd time to Barcelona, the first time was in 2002. Not many people knew this city, and to those who know, they can be categorized into 2 groups; the football fan and the architect. Football fans surely know FC Barca and Nou Camp, and the architects know because of Antoni Gaudi. I knew and explored out of curiosity.



We took the easyJet from Paris Orly airport and landed at Barcelona El Prat airport. Our first surprise; no immigration checkpoint after exiting the plane and moving into airport. This was because travelling within EU nations is seamless nowadays. Going to city centre, we took the commuter train, Renfe which was located outside the airport. One good thing was the location of this airport that is within the city centre zone. So we only need to buy a T-10 ticket that was valid for 10 rides within city centre. From Aeroport station, we changed to metro green line at Passeig de Gracia and then stopped at Liceu. We stayed at Hostel Mendoza, at the centre of La Ramblas, just in front of the station exit. It was a double room that comes with an internal shower for E50/room. Very very convenient...and within budget.. Our first time seeing such room.



La Ramblas is famous boulevard for a few things; mannequin street performers that worked from day till night, souvenir stalls, and the bad one; pickpockets. We were lucky not to meet them. While walking along this street with hundreds of people in the same direction, you'll also meet another hundreds walking opposite of your direction. There were many souvenir shops along both sides of this street, and all of them were owned and manned by South Asian people. Main items were football jerseys and Barcelona souvenir.

Since day 5 was half spent, the remaining half of the days were used to preview the city scene. We walked north-bound to Rambla de Catalunya and further on to Passeig de Gracia. Target to find the tapas or paella restaurants listed in my guide book. But we surrended after half an hour and turned back from Casa Battlo to Catalunya to look for a nearer restaurant.

It was 6.30pm, and we were worried dinner time was not up because Spaniard is famous for their late beer time, 6pm and dinner, 9pm. Anyway, we followed our own rules, dinner at 7pm. We chose what we must have; seafood paella (rice dishes) and sangria (fruity red wine). Conclusion: Satisfied and happy!!



At the south end of LR is the sea and port area, Barceloneta. You can find the Mirador De Colom (Columbus column) and 3D Imax theatre.