Barcelona Buzz (28 June to 1 July 2006)

It was just hot hot hot, which simply reminded me of Singapore. The first day saw us arriving in Girona @ 10am, thereafter making a 1hr+ journey via Barcelona bus into the heart of Barcelona, dropping us at Arc de Triomf.
We made our way to La Rambla, just 3 stops away, at a budget hostel called Apartments in Barcelona II. How apt. Despite the seemingly nice place (La Rambla), our hostel was situated on a quiet street - extremely dodgy. This wasn't helped by frequent "reports" of how unsafe Barcelona was and the potential encounters with thieves and robbers. We were, however, blessed to survive Barcelona unscathed.

I had great expectations of Barcelona, from the various reviews and kind remarks by friends and the rave feedback on the internet. The first day saw us hitting the various "touristy" attractions - La Rambla, Casa Mila, Plaza Catalunya and Sagrada Familia, the last one being extremely impressive and I must say the highlight of this trip, along with Montserrat (see below). Climbing up 100m of narrow spiral stairway is no mean feat and the clean breeze and nice view of Barcelona from the top makes it rewarding. The heart, though, shouldn't take such stress unless properly trained. The night was spent wandering around the Ancient City, near La Rambla.

The second day saw us heading towards the "serrated mountains" - Montserrat. We set off at 9am to catch the train leaving from Espanya. After what resembled a wild goose chase and €25, we set off for Monistrol for the tram up the mountains to Montserrat. The journey took us more than an hour. We rested i.e. slept, along the way and woke up to beautiful, nature-sculptured mountains.

Montserrat was certainly an awesome sight, which ranks alongside Colosseum and the Vatican City as highlights of our trips so far. We spend about an hour at the monastery before embarking on the various routes which you could see on the photo forum. The searing heat plus the long dirt roads make for tired legs and we could only manage 3 routes before calling it a day at Montserrat. We then began our journey back to Barcelona. We stopped at Espanya, just minutes away from the Olympic site of Montjuic.

We spent our last full day in Barcelona by visting Parc Guell and FC Barcelona, the latter second-best club after Arsenal FC. The stadium was awesome and a very well-maintained field which, again, will rank second to the Emirates Stadium. We were shown around the stadium, the museum and saw the CL cup (incidently stolen from the Marble Hall). I actually had a TV interview there (how I felt about the place) by TV3! It took a whole full day to tour the two places. We then spend the evening at Barceloneta and Port Olimpico. The beach was (quite) nice and we had paella rice as a final flourish to our enjoyable time in Barcelona.

Guess I will end here as words speak later than words. So check out our photo album!

Barcelona