Never mind him, he's from Barcelona

Today was our first full day in Barcelona. We arrived late yesterday after an almost three hour flight from Prague. We expected the weather in Barcelona to be rainy, as the forecast had predicted, instead it was reasonably warm, well compared to Prague anyway. It was quite a nice day, lots of sun and around 14 degrees, but it felt a little warmer.We are staying in a very lively part of town with lots of restaurants and bars. It is also very noisy, but that doesn’t worry us too much. Today, we used our public transport tickets to explore lots of the city by both train and bus. It is amazing how much of a city you can cover in just one day, but we do manage to pack in pretty full days.

Barcelona is a very cool place. Being on the coast, we decided to travel down to the port area and were surprised by the number of people on the beach, mind you not that many were braving the water to go swimming. If the weather holds, I’ve told Alison I’m going to brave it before we leave.

We have visited many beautiful cathedrals in our travels, and Barcelona’s is certainly up there with the best of them. The main cathedral here is so beautiful, so awesome it almost made me consider converting (but then I came to my senses and we bid a hasty retreat). Of course, Spain was also once part of the Holy Roman Empire (those Romans certainly got around) and there is no shortage of ancient reminders of their presence. Like most cities we visit, there is a younger part and a very old part to it. Both of them are great, but there’s certainly nothing quite like exploring the oldest streets and uncovering some historic relics.

Part of the Roman walls in Barcelona

Barcelona Cathedral - very beautiful, inside and out

This evening we decided to eat like some locals and sought out a few restaurants nearby which specialize in Spain’s two most well known dishes, paella and tapas. I thought it might be nice to try the paella, after all, we can always do the tapas tomorrow. We decided on a place that was really packed, always a good sign we figure, and ordered one mixed meat and one vegetarian paella. Although we waited well over twenty minutes for it to be served, we weren’t at all concerned as we knew this meant it was being cooked from scratch. In any event, we both had some cold beers and the match of the day between FC Barcelona and Seville FC on the big screen to keep us occupied. When the paellas finally arrived, they were incredibly good, served directly in the pan they’d been cooked on. 

This is a typical Barcelona street - not unlike Rome or even Paris (yeah, I know, what a bunch of name droppers)

We also made friends with a couple of local guys and their girlfriends, who were there to celebrate one of the guy’s birthdays, and of course to watch the game. Birthday boy’s English wasn’t great, but good enough for us to keep a basic conversation going, while the other guy and the two ladies had almost no English. Despite the fact that Spain is host to many English tourists, this is by far the worst city for English language we’ve encountered. Almost nobody here speaks it, and English in its written form is noticeable by its absence. It has been a challenge for us to work things out, but this is part of the fun of travel. Anyway, the guy was very friendly, and we left shaking hands as we wished him a happy birthday.

Castell de Montjuic, a fort dating from around the seventeenth century (I think)

Tomorrow, it’s up early to continue our exploration of this great city. There are so many ‘must sees’ it’s hard to know how we are going to manage to fit them all in, considering we only have two days remaining here; which means I’d better sign off and get to bed.