Barcelona (Day 4, March 5) : Catalan Walks

Salam..

This is the fourth episode of our Barcelona adventure series.. It may well be the last episode as we will be leaving for Limerick tomorrow morning, and I don't think tomorrow counts as another visit day.. Anyway, the title for this entry is "Catalan Walks", not for the reason that we took the Barcelona Walks, but merely because we explored the few places that we had missed by bus, mainly by walking.. Today was a pretty quiet and leisure day, far from the tight schedule of bus timetables..

Also, last night we noticed that one of our friends, Julia, was spending her holidays here in Barcelona too, and to make it even more surprising, she was staying in the same hotel as us! It was unfortunate that we did not even bump into each other during our stay here..

Leisure Day

The morning kicked off with a nice bright ray of sunshine flooding Placa Catalunya.. We strolled down La Rambla trying to decide where to have our breakfast.. It took us a while before realising that I wanted something different than the servings in La Poma.. But even after almost the length of the boulevard, we could not find a decent breakfast menu.. Hence we walked back up to La Poma and had our breakfast there - for the third day in a row!

Our first stop for the day was the Gran Teatre del Liceu.. This majestic and magnificent theatre served as a brilliant stage for artistes from all around the world.. Despite suffering major damages after two fire episodes, the restoration was perfect to rebuild the theatre and preserve its character and identity.. Unfortunate for us, the Main Theatre hall was out-of-limits for cameras, hence no picture for us to prove our visit.. Needless to say, it was spectacular inside! The one-hour guided tour was worth it..

Ina with our tour guide before the Gran Teatre del Liceu tour

What it would look inside the Main Theatre

We then made our way to Palau Guell, the home (palace) of Eusebi Guell.. Again, Guell took Gaudi as his architect to build his house.. Unfortunately, the place was under major restoration, so the only place we could visit at the building were the main entrance and the basement.. We barely spent half an hour there..

Palau Guell

The one place we re-visited was the Monument a Colom, the monument with Christopher Colombus, which was erected in 1888 at the foot of La Rambla.. One reason we re-visited the monument was to climb the tower and enjoy the view from 60-meter height.. The bright sky was great to allow us to enjoy the magnificent view from the top.. However, the windy day did make the tower sway a bit that a small inch of me did feel somewhat stirred! Nonetheless, the view from the height was awesome..

La Rambla - viewed from the top of Monument a Colom

We journeyed further and visited Palau de la Musica Catalana, somewhere up in the Barri Gotic district.. Again, misfortune struck when the tickets for the guided tour was sold out.. So, only few pictures outside the building and we headed back to Placa de Catalunya.. We spend some time playing with the birds at the plaza before having lunch at a restaurant at La Rambla..

Outside Palau de la Musical Catalana

Bird-feeding at Placa de Catalanya

Seafood Dinner

After some rest in our hotel room, we were out again and this time made our way to the IMAX Cinema where we watched Gigantes Del Oceano (Monsters of the Ocean), a 3D National Geographic movie.. After an hour, we walked and spent some time at the port and managed to catch a view of Barcelona at sunset.. The wind was gusty and made it slightly chilly.. It was the perfect view, with the port very calm at the end of the day..

Sunset at Port Vell

We had dinner at El Rey de la Gamba, a seafood restaurant.. We ordered a mixed seafood grill called Parillada, but we were suggested to take half of that and add half of Cigalas (crayfish).. We agreed and we were served with a very large portion of magnificent seafood that we could not finish it in the end! We took a taxi back to our hotel and packed for home..

Seafood dinner

Barcelona has surpassed all expectations and very well notched the definition of 'Holiday'.. I would recommend Barcelona highly as a Europe tour site and spend at least four to five days to fully enjoy the city.. As for me, I enjoyed every bit of my stay and I hope Ina did too.. She certainly looks like she did..

Adeu-siau! Hasta la vista, Barcelona!

Salam..