A Whirlwind Tour: Barcelona, Spain

Thursday, March 19
What a rush! We had travelled far and wide but our journey was not finished. We wanted to see what Spain was like. So after getting up late in the day my family and I headed by car to Barcelona. Ben and I had heard of other people planning and achieving a pleasant trip to Barcelona via car, so it seemed quite nice. It is only 2 hours from Toulouse, a wee bit crazy, that in a few hours one could be in a whole new country, but we headed out confident that it may be a long trip, but worthwhile.
An hour or so later, we stopped at a neat little rest stop. It faced the Pyrenees and one could get a decent picture of them if they decided to stop and look. The rest stop was actually quite nice, it felt like you were in a little village, in fact I think the word "village" was in its name. There were a few restaurant choices so we picked their fast cafe. Which served what Ben called "work food." It was OK. Edible versions of French cuisine, but not like a five-star restaurant. But c'est la vie. We had a pleasant time wandering around the "village" and grabbed a few postcards and some more pictures of the beautiful mountains. Soon we were ready to hit the road again.
Our trip to Barcelona was soon over, we reached its limits in no time. What a traffic jam! If one could call it that. Cars crept toward one another at a slow pace, hoping they would get to their destination on time. My Dad was an expert driver, despite the GPS having a trouble not knowing where we were. Finally, after a long awaited time, we reached the center of the city, where our hotel was. But the center was no different from the outskirts. Cars raced toward the nearest roundabout only to get stuck entering into it. We were stuck for a time and could not even get across to where we needed to be, so taking the next road we ran into the place (by shear luck I am sure) where our hotel was located. We tried to see if there was any parking near the hotel but our car was too big for the nearest lot (rather underground parking). So we crepted out into the pedestrian way and somehow, by the kindness of a pedestrian just sitting by the sidewalk we got out of the pedestrian mess out into the traffic mess once again. We travelled a little further, probably 3 or 4 long blocks and found another "P" indicating yet another parking spot. We found our way into it through the droves of people and hectic traffic. Without much ado we found a good parking spot. Scrambling out of the car we excited our underground parking to the world of Barcelona. It shouldn't have surprised me, but I could tell who were tourists and who probably weren't. But there were several tourists within a few yards of each other, from all walks of life and different countries. We had to find a map and easily found one, Ben knew where we had to go to reach our hotel, it just was a matter of finding where we had ended up and which direction we should go. After acquiring the map we headed more or less in the direction of our hotel which was through all the busiest streets of central Barcelona. We passed several touristy shops and Mom was excited to find Lladro, the small porcelain statues one can only find in Spain. We peeked into those windows hoping to find the right one. After going down the street filled with touristy shops we noticed it was probably The Ramblers, the main street full of shops and markets that is famous in Spain. Once realizing it was the Ramblers our hotel was easily found, just off the busy street in a little inlet of shops and pedestrian walkways.
The hotel was extremely modern, but in good taste. Up the elevator and just a few steps down the hallway we were upon our room, which of course held the same decor as the rest of the building. Two twin beds formed the "double bed" and bunk beds were just beyond the double beds behind a fake wall. The double bed was against one wall and in the middle was the TV, computer and desk and down a small hall was the bathroom. Everything was nice and well taken care of and I expected a fairly decent stay. The boys headed back out to fetch our bags abandoned in the car and us girls headed out to shop. Once out again we easily found the shops we wanted. Not all of them held Lladro, but they did hold Lladro's close sister Nao which is made by the same company and is the same quality as the original Lladro, just a touch less expensive. Nao also doesn't have quite the unique colors and delicacy as Lladro but just as nice. I easily found a Nao I liked and quickly purchased it. With a bit of bargaining even! I had not expected to bargain. But I got a slightly better price than was offered. Mom also was successful getting several gifts here.
We took our purchases back to the hotel, eagerly putting them in a safe place. The boys returned with our bags and reported they found a tour bus that took you throughout the city and would give us some good info. So resting for a bit more, we headed out once again to take the tour. The tour was great, especially the first half. We were able to see some of Gaudi's works an apartment building and a house he had built (I fail to remember their names). We also passed several historical things of Barcelona. One statue we passed was created by Roy Lichtenstein in honor of Barcelona, it was quite amazing. Unfortunately the tour grew long and things became a little less interesting. But Barcelona was a fun lively city and rather cool if one is on the top floor of a bus in the open air at night. It was also interesting to see some of the buildings that were left after the Olympics one such building got turned into one of Barcelona's finest apartment buildings, for its location to the ocean and its connection to the Olympics. All in all the tour was great, knowing that you had seen some of the great architectural works of the world. But admittedly that was the only touristy thing we did in Barcelona. We did not spend much time looking at Gaudi's other works or at any of the museums. I kind of regret not doing that, but if anything I saw and felt the beat of the city and sometimes that is all you need.
Our tour of France and Spain was over, it was a fast one, but good enough to glean some knowledge. Such as how Carcassonne was once a Cathar city and that the Eiffel Tower was built for the World's Fair or that the Louvre was once a royal palace. All interesting facts one could tell their friends or show them the pictures of the amazing works of art that were more amazing up close and personal. Such is life of a traveler. This was a fun trip and I hope to soon take another!