I woke up really early at around 3am to pack my things and prepare to depart the place early so as to ensure that I get to the airport on time. I settled all the immigration checkpoint matters and had around 45 min to spare at the transit area. The plane was supposed to take off at 7.45am but it was delayed. Spanair operates as an internal carrier around Spain and it is somewhat like a Spanish version of Air Asia. The flight to Barcelonna took around 1hr 15min. Once I touch down at El Prat Airport, I proceeded straight to find and purchase the Barcelona Card. Unlike Madrid, the Barcelona card covers all transportation and includes some discounts for attraction too. It seems that the cost of a train ride from the airport to Barca’s city centre is around 10 Euros. That’s a lot compared to Madrid where I pay a mere 2 Euros to get to Barajas. Since I have the Barca card, it’s included inside and I guess I’ll need to pay that 10 Euros when I return.
The first impressions of Barca that I have is that the weather is gonna be as hot as Madrid. But the main difference that I spotted instantly was the presence of palm trees and I remembered that Barcelona is a seaside city. I reached the city centre station at around 10am+ and transferred to another line. Even by just looking at the train lines, I can tell that Barca is a much of messy city than Madrid. The trains in Madrid are operated under one standard Metro company but in Barcelona, there are different types of trains – much like Malaysia’s LRT and Monorail. For the stop that is the nearest to my hostel, I have to take the FGC train. These FGC trains are a lot older than the Metro trains and they look rather run-down. By the time I made my way to the El Putxto stop, which is where I’m supposed to be at, it was already 11am. I thought that it would be a jiffy to search for the hostel and it wouldn’t be too hard but it turned out that I was taking things for granted by not checking properly on the exact location. I didn’t even write down the proper address! I circled around the area for countless amount of times. I was on the right street but somehow, I couldn’t find the correct shop lot for it. Without the proper lot number, it’s gonna take ages and I can’t find any free internet nearby. I was on the verge of giving up when I bumped onto the correct door. This is crazy. The hostel is so inconspicuous and there’s not even a proper signboard. I went up and the reception front door was big wooden door which was locked. I had to bang a couple of times before somebody responded to it. Ahhh, it seems that this so-called hostel is actually a university residence. My room has nothing except a bed, a table and a cupboard. There’s not even a fan, which is not good news for a weather like Barca. The funny thing is that it has a fridge inside the room of all things. Oh well, at least I could store some cold drinks inside or chocolates. In addition to that, there’s also a familiar smell of basic uni hostel accommodation which I’m very acquainted with during my first two years of undergraduate studies. Toilets are shared and they are located quite a distance away. Woahh..the standards here are certainly a far cry from the one I stayed in at Madrid but I gotta make do with it since I wanna save money. The only extra good thing that this hostel has is that it has a kitchen with water dispenser and microwave. This provided an avenue to actually buy raw food from supermarket and heat it up myself. That is really a useful money-saving tool considering that I am confident that I won’t be able to find a Museo Jamon clone in Barca.
I was pretty exhausted and would wanna sleep for a while after searching so hard for the hostel. However, I also knew that I had to cover some ground to ensure that the free coupons from my Barca card are not wasted. The first destination that I’ve decided to go is CosmoCaixa – which is somewhat like a science center sponsored by the Spanish Caixa Bank. It turned out to be further away than expected from the FGC station and I had to walk up a steep luxurious neighbourhood to reach the CosmoCaixa. The interiors look superbly new and modern plus the aircon is blasting high. Ahhh, the aircon is most useful with the burning Barca heat outside. There was much to offer in CosmoCaixa for people of all ages and I’m quite impressed by the range of scientific exhibitions that they have there. There’re dinosaur bones, strange marine creatures, recycling models, and physics exhibition. The most impressive one for me was the presence of an Amazon rainforest right smack within the building itself. It was built in such a way that one can have a cross-section look of the rainforest through the glass windows. Once I’m satisfied with exploring around, I made my way down the hill and took the train back to city center to get dinner. In the process, I took the opportunity to explore the city centre too. Hmmmm..for some reason or so, the supermarkets were closed early so I had to pick one restaurant outlet to take away. I decided to try the Pans Company because it looked pretty much like an ubiquitous Spanish Subway company. I didn’t try it in Madrid, so I thought that maybe I could give it a shot here. It’s not exactly cheap food but at least it fills the stomach. Anyways, I got myself an early rest on the first day as I try to figure out how to spend as many coupons from the Barcelona card as possible.
For the second day of Barcelona, I started off with the La Familia Sangrada which is a basilica that is still under construction even after more than 100 years! Work had began in 1882 and it’s completion date is purported to be 2026. The queue to enter the basilica is extremely long and I had to queue for a good 45 minutes before I could buy tickets to enter. The entrance fee ain’t cheap too but with the Barca Card, I got a small discount off the original price. The inside of the church is magnificent, with a myriad of bright colours juxtaposing against the white marble background. There were plenty of visitors but somehow this gigantic structure still had plenty space for visitors to walk around. One of the interesting monuments in there is a giant slab which contained the Lord’s prayer in various languages and I could find Bahasa in there..haha! There was no time to waste after I’m done with the Basilica. I was tempted to pop in for a buffet lunch at a restaurant opposite but then I realised that I do not have much time left to explore if I spend the time munching on food. As usual, two Hamburgers from McD will do the trick for lunch and I headed straight to find the music museum which is located in Auditori. On the way, I had the opportunity to bump into Barcelona’s bullfighting arena. It looks almost the same as its Madrid counterpart but is now defunct as far as bullfighting is concerned since the sport Is banned in the Catalan region. Anyways, it’s free entrance through the Barca Card for the Museo Musica. Plenty of musical instruments to explore and see and exhibits are arranged according to the individual cultures that they come from. There’s also another section which charts the evolution of music throughout the ages. Not many people were present there because I guess it’s not a popular area to visit unless you’re really into playing musical instruments. Time is ticking, so I hastily made my way to the chocolate museum to ensure that I have ample time to explore it before it closes in the evening. The chocolate museum is another free entrance case and the ‘ticket’ that I received is actually a bar of chocolate! Mhmmm..the chocolate museum is not just a place that exhibits plain old chocolate bars or just mention about the history of cocoa. This little museum houses artistic confectionary masterpieces made entirely from just chocolate! These artisan chefs do not see chocolate only as a delicious source of food, but also as moulding materials like clay. Visitors are treated to a wide array of plain brown chocolate sculptures and also colour painted ones which features well-known characters such as Asterix, Tintin and Bambi. The impressive thing about these sculptures is that they look exactly like the 3D version of their print/screen counterpart. They look almost too good to be eaten..haha. I stayed there until the museum is closing for the day. There’s still some daylight evening time left, so I head off to the docks to find the Columbus Column. This column is located at the end of the La Rambla stretch. The highlight of this place is that one can take an elevator up to the top to have a bird’s eye view of Barcelona city centre from the coast. Entrance is free from the Barca card. There was a short queue to board up the small elevator where only 4 people can go up at a time. The elevator sorta reminded me of the elevator in the Merlion. The space to move around the column at the top of the column is extremely narrow. It has just enough space for a one lane circumference. If one is too fat or is claustrophobic, this place will definitely be a problem. Nevertheless, the view from up there is fantastic. Besides the city centre on one side, I can also have a bird’s eye view of the docks, the World Trade Center and the ships parked near the coast. When I’m satisfied with the pictures taken at the top, I returned back to ground. It was nearing evening, at about 7pm and I was contemplating whether to take the boat ride today or tomorrow. Finally, I decided to take it tomorrow instead as a form of finale to the Spanish voyage. Meanwhile, I walked along the docks and checked out the Barca beach and its seaside attractions. I couldn’t walk the whole coast of course, so at some point of time, I did a u-turn to return back to La Rambla. By then, shops were already closing and I spotted a Carrefour there. So I went in to see to find whether I can get anything to eat and I had a hard time deciding. I bought a raw pizza in the end because I thought that I could bake it in the oven in the hostel. In addition to that, I bought a packet of chips too because it was on promotion. While looking through the shelves, what attracted my attention was bottled Sangria being sold in supermarket shelves. Woahhh, in England, this is like cocktail which can only be obtained in bars but yet in Spain (the country where Sangria originates from), Sangria is just dirt cheap and although it is alcoholic, it is bottled like fruit juice! Carrefour even has its own range of Sangria in box packets. I grabbed one 1.5l bottle and since I have a fridge in the room, I’ll place the bottle in to chill it and drink it for dinner the next day.
On day 3, it’s the moment I’ve been waiting for – it’s time to head off to Nou Camp! I was supposed to start moving in the morning but slackness dragged me on my feet and by the time I reached Nou Camp, it was close to afternoon already. Nou Camp is located on the outskirt of the city centre and it’s literally a Barca sports village by itself. As I was walking to the stadium, I passed by what I believe to be one of the facilities used by the legendary Barca academy to train their young kids. Once I reached the main compound of the stadium, I went straight to queue up for the tickets. There were loads of people snaking to go into the stadium, even more than the Bernebeu I would say. If you thought that Bernebeu’s 16 Euros was expensive, wait till you hear Barca’s entry price of over 20 Euros. Since I had Barca card, I managed to get a small discount. Ughhh..expensive, but it’s a once in a lifetime experience. After getting my ticket, I joined the long snake by going up the escalator and crossing the overhead bridge which brings me directly into the stadium museum. Like the Bernebeu, this stadium tour is self-service. Visitors can also get a free audio guide to accompany them during the museum visitation. Since the museum extremely crowded, I just had a look at the exhibits and let the audio guide do all the talking. At the end of the museum trail, visitors can enter into the main stadium arena with the playing field where the magnificent ‘Mes Que Un Club’ slogan laid majestically among the seats across the other side. Bernebeu feels squarish and high but Nou Camp is more on the rounded side with a lower and its seating arrangement spreads out.
I took my time to savour the view from my place and at the same time, tried to scout for any appropriate candidates among the other tourists to help me to take a photo of me with the stadium. It was quite a chore to cycle a few bunch of people before I managed to get a satisfactory shot of myself with the stadium. I continued to follow the route of the stadium which also leads to the area of the press box where the TV commentators sit. I was keeping track of the time very closely and I try since I had a few other destinations in mind to complete. After feeling satisfied with Nou Camp, I made my way to another sporting venue – the Barcelona Olympics Museum. Since Barca hosted the Olympics in 1992, the Olympic Stadium would still would have been there. The Olympic Village (where the museum is located) is located at the top of a hill and I had to take a special FGC funicular tram to reach the top. This special FGC funicular tram looks exactly like the Penang Hill trams, only more modern. The ride did not take long and from the summit station, I had to walk around 5-10 minutes to reach the museum. The Olympic Museum had various exhibits on the origins of different sporting events. I did not stay long to read the long narratives, so I just skimmed through the areas which are interesting enough for me to explore because of the time. The quick browse of the Olympic Museum was over quickly and I’m off to have a look at the Barcelona Olympic Stadium. Hmmmmm..it still looks well-maintained despite it being mostly devoid of any activity apart from the tourists. My next area of exploration was kinda discovered by accident. Nearby to the Olympic Village was the Castell de Montjuic which was actually a 17th century military fortification overlooking the Barca coast. As this castle is located on the highest point of the hill, visitors can basically have a bird’s eye view over the whole of Barcelona city centre. It offers an even wider view compared to the Columbus Column. The only setback is that there’s lots of smog permeating the air, and as a result, the camera couldn’t capture a good overview of it. Climbing up and down the various spots in Montjuic is very physically demanding and tiring and by the time I reached the base of the hill, I was brimming with exhaustion. There was still one last thing for me to complete and I’ve just arrived in time before it is closed for the day. It’s the free boat ride along the coast of Barcelona courtesy of the Barca card! It’s an old ferry but the ride was very relaxing. It went past the cargo bay area before making a u-turn back to the docks. Along the way, the little old ferry passed by the gigantic cruise ships too. I think it’s a fitting finale for my time in Barca – to end it off with a boat ride in the evening. For my last dinner, I just grabbed some pasta from the frozen section in the supermarket and reheat them using the hostel’s microwave. To top up my meal, I also have a bottle of ice-cold bottled Sangria which I’ve placed inside the fridge the night before. Ahhh, looks like I’ll drink myself drunk and just fall asleep on the bed. Mhmm, I remember feeling very sleepy at half a bottle and then I dozed off.
My flight back to Leeds is scheduled to be at 12.45pm on 13th July. I’m not going anywhere on the last day and the morning shall be reserved solely in getting ready for the flight and making sure that I don’t leave any valuables behind. I woke up considerably early and started packing up and took my time to wash up. My time estimations were all spot on and I was at the airport way before time. 3hrs on, I’m safely seated back in my base of operation at Leeds. Well, that concludes the first half of my European voyage. Right now, I’ll take a nice break first from all the travelling and look forward to Mama’s arrival and graduation!
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