June 2010 - Barcelona

Paraisohostel - my tip for staying in Barcelona

Unfortunately, there could be no consensus found in our graduating class over where to go for our trip. Those trips are traditional among Gymnasium graduating classes. We had held elections and the winner was Lloret de Mar, which won with about 30% of the votes. Of the other 70%, most refused to go to Lloret in any case which lead to the class splitting into separate groups, each going somewhere on their own.

The groups I was a part of originally intended to do a two-weeks train ride all across Europe. Due to mostly financial problems this waqs not possible and the alternative idea of going to Barcelona for a week took shape. Most of us were fine with that and so after we had recovered from the graduation ceremonies and prom we had ourselves dropped off at Hamburg airport.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Flight Hamburg - Düsseldorf - Barcelona

Lufthansa took us first do Düsseldorf and then to Barcelona where we arrived at the all-new terminal 1 in the early evening hours. After a while we had finally found the train that would take us into the city, to Sants Estacio precisely. It was a surprisingly long train ride taking more than half an hour. I felt that my mates's excitement was still partly covered by uncertainty since we weren't at our hostel yet.

Thanks to Google Maps and Street View I had prepared myself for the task of leading a herd of seven uncertain travellers through a city none of us had ever been to before. At Sants Estacio we transferred to the metro (which has surprisingly small and labyrinthine stations) and got off at Poble Sec, then walking a few blocks to our place, the Paraiso Hostel.

We were already expected and welcomed very warmly. Victoria, the nice lady from the front desk, showed us around the small hostel which only covers one story of a typical old Spanish building, provided us with our bedsheets and handed out maps on which she pointed out all important landmarks and tourist attractions as well as relevant bus routes.
Eventually, we had all gotten excited and thus we could not think of sleep yet. Instead, we went to a nearby supermarket to shop for groceries before we sat down in one of our two rooms.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

"Barcelona, Babay!"

The map told us that the city center was only a relatively short walk from where we stayed. Hence we started the day by walking past the Mercat Sant Antoni and through the beautiful old town towards La Rambla, from there to Placa de Catalunya and even look into an interesting food market.

Beaching and Beach Club

After another grocery shopping we took the bus to the beach, the Platja de la Barceloneta. Situated directly by the yacht harbor and a really nice old city district this part of the beach has the major advantage of being served by the same bus lines that ran close to our hostel. And so getting to the beach only takes a few hassle-free minutes. We spent the afternoon in the sun and one of the promoters walking around there made a seemingly great offer: free admission to a beach club close to where we were at the moment, by the olympic harbor, even with a free drink. Since we didn't have any plans for the evening yet half of us set off that night to go to that club. Since buses weren't running anymore, we decided to walk. For me, it wasn't a long or exahusting walk, but of course the girls wearing high-heels had a different opinion about it.
The mentioned club, named 'Shoko Club' made quite a good impression on us. Compared to our local small-town "club" this was a noble, clean spot that seemed full of rich people. But the most importand difference was that the drinks were horribly expensive. And so we just stayed for a few more hours without drinking anything, which I really enjoyed.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Once again we went down to the beach for the day. For dinner we tried the little fast food restaurant just across the street from our hostel. Like every time we walked down to Paral.lel metro station, this time taking the funincular up Montjuic. That is a hill in the southwest of the city, topped by a mighty citadel. We went up here to enjoy the sunset overlooking the city.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Park Güell

Originally, our first stop that day should have been the Sagrada Familia. Arriving there around noon we had to find that lots of other tourists had had the same plan as us, forming a line winding once around the complex in the glaring midday sun. So we decided to skip this for now and come back the next day in the early morning hours to avoid such long lines. Instead, we got back on the metro to go further towards the edge of the city, to Park Güell. This park, designed by Gaudi himself, had been recommended to us by the hostel staff as well as Aven's travel guide. We were not disappointed as Gaudi's individual style gives the park a very comfortable aura. Unfortunately we couldn't stay long since some of our group had another priority thing on their day's list: the soccer game between Germany and Serbia. Basically everybody went back to the hostel to watch that game on the TV there while I preferred strolling off on my own for the next hours.

Mirador de Colom and Museu Maritim

Eventually, I found myself at the harbor again. Since we all had a Barcelona-Card admission to both the Columbus monument as well as the museum of seafaring were free and I decided to take the chance. From the viewing deck on top of the Columbus monument one has a wonderful view across the city, yet a less distant one than from Montjuic. This time, the city is right there at one's feet and the view was just great. The windows are a little bit dirty and it is pretty narrow up there but it was worth the effort.
Next stop for me was the museum. Frankly, there was not very much to see but then again only a part of the museum was accessible anyway, due to upgrading works. Neverthelss, I was very impressed by the replica of the royal galley John of Austria used in the battle of Lepanto in 1571.

Boat ride

Coming back to the hostel I found my comrades watching a DVD out of the hostel's collection. I learned that the TV had not worked during the soccer game - irony of fate. Our Barcelona-Card held one more bargain, a free ticket for a one-hour boat ride along the shore and through the port. And so we went back down to the harborfront, where the boat company is located just across the Columbus monument. The ride gave us a really amazingly different view on the city from the seaside, unfortunately the price for the view was a strong cold wind which lead to some complaints among the group. But still we all enjoyed having taken this trip.

Moog

We wanted to go clubbing again, but this time at a considerably lower price level. We knew exactly who to ask: the nice lady at the hostel's front desk! She marked complete streets where good bars and clubs would be situated, and we decided on one she had named: Moog, somewhere off La Rambla. Finding it proved to be much harder than the map suggested but eventually we got lucky in a little side street. The club was definitely small and hardly comparable to the ones by the beach, but admission and drinks were much cheaper and we had a great time anyways.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Sagrada Familia

We did not manage to get up as early as planned but still we were early enough to get into the Sagrada Familia without having to wait at all. And so we stepped into Barcelona's most popular tourist attraction. The interesting architecture of the outside is amazing enough to look at, but once we came inside we felt as if we were in a gigantic forest. In general, the infuence of the Gothic cathedrals is obvious, but when it comes to the details and the whole different concept of impressions this one is unique and fascinating. Already the Sagrada Familia is one of Barcelona's tallest buildings and I had never seen any pictures of what it is supposed to look like after completion. The more impressed was I when I did right there, realizing that it is bound to stand about twice as tall as it does now. I am excited to see this building when it finally is completed, and no later than then is when I am planning to get back to Barcelona to see what I can not really imagine at the moment.
Below the actual church, in the basement, a museum has been established which illustrates the planning and construction of the building, also using impressive scale models which show some details invisible to the eye while walking through the original hall.

Torre de Collserola

We split up for a while: four of us went to the Picasso museum where we only saw one of two exhibits which was enough input for all of us. Even though I personally am not a fan of Picasso, I found this a very interesting and enlightening visit. When we met the others back at Placa de Catalunya we had to decide what to do now. From walking all the way to the museum we were exhausted and wished for a break while the others, who had waited and rested for hours, were excited to doing something right away. We decided for going up to Barcelona's TV tower, the Torre de Collserola.

It sits on top of a hill north of the city. Getting there was the most difficult task of the week. A long ride with a regional train, then a funincular and a bus that drove on mysterious paths were necessary until we finally stood at the doors of the tower with the viewing deck. Bad for me: a glass elevator takes visitors up to that deck and even the architecture of that platform itself is not very friendly for acrophobic people. Good thing for me: the Spaniards did not find it necessary to compete with other European cities in building TV towers, and thus it is not quite that high. The view was fantastic and I do not regret going up there one bit.

For dinner we went to a restaurant Aven had found in her travel guide. Actually, we had been there already the day before only to find out that it opened pretty late. Luckily, we had asked the front desk lady to make a reservation for us, as the "La Bella Napoli" seems to be relatively famous in Barcelona. Already soon after we arrived people kept lining up outside the door, waiting to get a seat. And the waiters did make us notice that they would like us to pay and get out of there making way for new customers. The pizza was awesome, though, and so was the restaurant in general. Being sligthly annoyed by the waiters' rude behavior we went back to our hostel to celebrate Jannik's birthday at midnight.

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, June 20, 21 and 22, 2010

Taking it easy towards the end

We spent the coming two days at the beach. On Sunday we were approached by promoters once again who handed us tickets for what seemed to be pretty great: free admission to two of the beach clubs by the olympic harbor, free Italian buffet and good music. Hence, we took the night bus to that place and got in for free. The buffet was already almost empty and we only managed to grab some cold pasta that was still left. Eventually, we noticed that we had been scammed. What the promoters hadn't told us was that to get out of the club, we had to buy a drink in order to have our "in" card exchanged with an "out" card. The cheapest drink was 10€ for a beer. Some of our group managed to get kicked out and of the three of us who were still inside one had not bought a drink so he had to invest in a beer just to get out. Since we are Germans, the first thing we did was complain and be stinky. Not that we still wanted to go to the second club - the evening had come to an end for some other reasons as well - this would have only been possible at some point late at night, hours away. Thus, we ended up walking home and going to bed, some of us angrily.

Our last evening in Barcelona and probably the last evening all of us would ever spend together, we wanted to have good dinner again. The front desk lady suggested a few restaurants and we were left with the choice between Argentinean and Mexican food. Having chosen Mexican, we walked to the restaurant to find out it was full and no table to get there. That way, and more by accident, we ended up in a really nice little Spanish restaurant serving cheap local food with friendly service.

We had asked our front desk lady to book some cabs for us for the next morning. We had to get up early, very early, to catch our flight at 6:55am. The cab ride was expensive but the only way to get to the airport at that point of time from that part of the city. At sunrise we were already boarding our flight to Frankfurt. Despite being awake during our layover there, we slept through the flights and also the car ride back home.

Looking back

I travel a lot, but I hardly ever get the chance to travel with my closest friends. It was hell of a lot of fun celebrating the end of our common school years in a city as beautiful as Barcelona. Frankly, I had never been very keen on visiting Spain, thinking that there wouldn't really be much to see. I was proven wrong. Barcelona has a lot to offer. It is a city of the arts. You walk on art, you walk under art, and besides it. Art is everywhere making this a very beautiful city. Add some palm trees and a beach to get some of the California-feeling. The cultural life is extremely rich and there are so many museums and landmarks to explore that one week can really only give you the chance of seeing the important ones. We really profited from buying the Barcelona-Card. Not only did it give us free rides on public transport but also free or discount admission to a vast number of attractions, some of which we would not have known or visited without that card.