Welcome to the special edition of our series of tour of Barcelona.. This week, both myself and Ina are taking our annual leave and we decided to have our extended honeymoon to Spain.. I will try to relive our Spanish experience in words as best as I can.. Enjoy the read and let your imagination take you with us in our journey in this magical Catalan city!
The morning in Limerick never felt any warmer than this.. We started off very early taking a cab to Shannon Airport, all around 4.45am.. Our flight was scheduled at 6.45, so we had enough time to travel across the city..We checked in and, to my surprise, we saw Dr James Stodart, the new Palliative Care consultant, whom I came to know very well in the last few months too.. All to surprising too that he was spending his break in Barcelona! Despite my best attempt to avoid formality, I kept addressing him as 'Dr Stodart' and repeatedly he asked me to call him James!
Ola, Barcelona!
We arrived at the Costa Brava Girona Airport still with the sun making its way through the morning.. We took a bus straight to Estacio d'Autobusos Barcelona Nord, one of the four main bus stations in Barcelona.. We did not wait long to grab a taxi to Placa de Catalunya where our hotel was located.. It was such a great day, and only made better to realize our hotel was in the middle of all the action and literally within walking distance to La Ramblas, the Grafton-like avenue in the centre of Barcelona..
After checking-in, we went to the plaza in front of the hotel and started snapping pictures.. The statues and architectures around the park were so impressive, like taking a walk down medieval Barcelona when modernism just started.. The plaza centre was filled with an enormous flock of birds, mainly pigeons.. Two small stalls also sell cheap seeds for visitors to buy and feed the birds..
Placa de CatalunyaNext stop, we walked down La Rambla, breathing the splendid atmosphere of multi-function avenue - with stalls selling souvenirs, man-statues, florists and pet-sellers and even artists painting further down the lane.. It was all so brilliant.. We also stopped by at the Mercat de la Boqueira, Barcelona's central market.. The fruits were fresh and cheap all very well displayed for excited tourists! Ina bought some fresh fruits while I got myself some caramelised cashews and salted pistachios.. Then, we walked all the way down to the Monument a Colom, with a statue of Christopher Colombus at the top pointing at the sea.. We walked along the pier and saw Las Golondrinas, a boat that later on took us around Port Vell and toured the near side of the sea all the way to Port Olimpic, the home of the Olympians in 1992..
Mercat de la Boqueira
Port Vell pier
That night we had our first ever tapas and paella dinner at Micky's.. Now, in all fairness, we didn't know exactly where to have our dinner, hence we tried at the first sight of option available.. It was not the greatest Spanish food we had tasted but it was enough for us to know what exactly tapas and paellas were.. I had some paella vegetale (vegetable paella) while Ina took in seafood paella.. We took some tapas as well - squid, mussels and salad.. Generally, tapas are small portions of meal, be it vegetable salad, seafood or even chips or potatoes.. The great thing about tapas are we can mix and match and choose our own combinations.. On the other hand, paellas are really tomato-base rice, and depending on what the 'extras' are, you get yourself a seafood paella, vegetable paella or other kinds of paella..
Dining the Catalan way - Paellas and tapasThe first day was such a great start for us newcomers to Spain.. We had a magnificent welcoming greet from the Catalan capital and we were so much looking forward for the next few days of our stay here.. Be sure to stay tuned!
Salam..
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