The first thing I did was go to the Mercat de San Josep. It was amazing. They literally had everything that you could ever imagine in terms of food there. The seafood selection was incredible and they scaled and cut up the fish for you right in the market. My mom would have loved it. I ate an amazing lunch of calamari and shrimp. They were so delicious, I was pretty much the happiest person on earth. I also had fresh squeezed Mango and Coconut juice. It was more like a smoothie, but it was equally as good as my seafood. |
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View of the cruise ships from my tour around the harbor. |
After being in a fishy mood I decided to head down to the water. While I was there I decided to enjoy it fully and took a 35 minute harbor cruise. It was so nice. The weather was ridiculously nice and the water was so blue and beautiful, I felt right at home. After my cruise I visited the floating mall. I just strolled through since I didn't really want to do any shopping. Then I went to try and see Sta. Maria del Mar but it was closed. So then I went to the Picasso museum. I'm not a huge fan of good old Pablo, but it was still a cool museum (especially since it had a lot of his earlier work which is actually normal). I then tried to go see the Cathedral, but that was also closed because the Pope was coming to visit the next day. The Pope didn't even go to the Cathedral, he went to the Sagrada Familia Basilica, but the Cathedral was still closed (I think the Cathedral people were bitter the Pope wasn't coming to their church). I saw some people protesting the Pope which doesn't really make sense to me. If you don't like the Pope, don't be Catholic. Or you can be Catholic and retain all the beliefs of the faith without agreeing with the Pope. Protesting a religious figure seems a little unnecessary to me.
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Gaudi's house. |
After that I walked to the area where Gaudi's house is. I was going to go in and see it, but I didn't really want to spend 17€ on one tour. So instead I went to the CaixaForum which is located in one of Gaudi's buildings. It had a free art exhibit of works by Mariscal. Google him. You'll probably recognize some of his cartoon characters. I continued to walk around for a little bit longer after that. I had some of the best chocolate gelato ever before I decided it was time to head back to my hostel for the night. On the way there the metro train I was on broke down. So I got off and decided to explore the area which was the Plaza Espanya. There's supposed to be a magical fountain in front of the Park Montjuïc, but of course it was under construction so there was no light show. So I ended up walking in this huge circle for no reason.
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CaixaForum #1 |
Finally I went back to the hostel and asked the guy at the desk for a restaurant suggestion in the area. He gave me one and after resting a little while I went to check it out. There was basically no one there; obviously not the restaurant I was looking for. So I decided to walk around a little bit and see what else I could find. I found nothing. So despite my tiredness I got back on the metro and decided to head back toward the center. I walked down a street where earlier I had seen a bunch of restaurants. After looking at a few menus I found one I thought I might like. So I put my name on the waiting list and had a coke at the bar. After about 15 minutes they called me in to be seated. It was really weird having dinner alone, but I wanted some good food! I was so happy I had decided to go back to the center because I had an amazing meal. For my first course I had a warm goat cheese salad with honey vinaigrette. Then I had a piece of grilled cod over some ratatouille style veggies. It was by far one of the best meals I've eaten in Spain. Finally it was time to go back to the hostel for good. Once there I took a quick shower and crashed.
Unfortunately I didn't sleep to well that night. I stayed in a 10 person room, and the last person didn't get in until 1 am and the first person started leaving at 5 am. Every single person was up and moving around going in and out of the door BEFORE 8 AM. I was not a very happy camper. So by that point I knew I wasn't going to sleep anymore so I got up, packed my stuff, got ready to go out, checked out, and put my stuff in the luggage room. I went to a little bakery across the street from the hostel and had an amazing pastry type thing. Then I jumped on the metro and went back to Plaza Espanya. I went to the other CaixaForum first. I watched two short films, then saw two different free art exhibits. The first was of modern Spanish painters. It included some of Dahli and Picasso. The other exhibit was of Miquel Barceló. His paintings were somewhat abstract but very textured.
Then I started my hike through park Montjuïc. My destination was the Olympic stadium, but it took me a while to get there. When I finally did I explored a bit and even went inside the stadium and saw the track. Then I walked to the cable car so I could ride it up the mountain to the castle on the edge of the hill overlooking the water. It was an amazing view so I just spent a while wandering around admiring the view. I had a sandwich at a little outdoor cafe next to the castle. After a while I took the cable car back down and started heading out of the park.
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Street in Poble Espanyol. |
My final destination was Poble Espanyol (Spanish Village) which was built for the 1929 International Exhibition. The artists visited over 1600 spanish villages in order to recreate the different parts of Spain within this one little village. It was pretty neat to see. It's home to a bunch of artisan shops and delicatessens. So of course I had to buy a few presents. After walking around there I made my way back to the hostel picked up my bags and headed to the train station. I was at the train station by 5 pm when my train didn't leave until 7:30 pm, but my legs could not have hauled my body around any more. So I ended up doing home work at the train station and was able to watch a movie about the life of El Greco on the ride back. It was a great two days in Barcelona. I really want to go back someday and explore some more!!
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