After not having the greatest time in the world in my first-day-and-a-half in Barcelona, I was going to try to make the most of my final day. I had a rough itinerary drawn up in my head. Though I only hit about half of what I had intended, because even better things came up, it probably was the best day that I’ve had in the entire nine-week European leg of my journey.
I started off by going back to the Sagrada Família. I wasn’t there for long, I just needed finally to get some good pictures of the place. This time around, both the weather and my iPhone cooperated.
After the Sagrada Familia, I decided that I finally needed to take a stroll down La Rambla. La Rambla is a pedestrian path in central Barcelona with numerous shops, street performers, painted people and just a general orgy of activity. It’s quite a bit away from where I was at, but since the day was so beautiful, I decided to walk down the Gran Via, nearly connects both sites. Along the way to La Rambla are numerous churches, fountains and statues and the walk was anything but mundane.
I arrived at Plaza Catalunya and La Rambla begins just south of the Plaza. As I started strolling down La Rambla, I couldn’t believe that I had missed this completely on my first day in Barcelona, though being a pedestrian street, the tour bus skipped past it completely. The street was lined with shops and restaurants and people drinking beer and sangria at ten in the morning. It seemed to go on forever and led me all the way down to the port.
As with the Sagrada Família, my earlier pictures from around the port left much to be desired. Now, the weather was beautiful and I had more time to position myself around the buildings and statues with the sun at my back and the views were much more breathtaking. Also, I crossed La Rambla del Mar, which is a continuation of sorts of La Rambla that is built upon a wooden platform that is built over the port. Ultimately, it leads to a shopping mall, which is a little anti-climactic, but what the heck.
Now, I was ready for the beach. It was closing in on 75 degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I had seen people on the beach the previous day on the tour bus, so I had an approximate idea of where to find it, so I just walked around the port while I tried to get there. Along the way, there were more statues and buildings that asked me for a picture and I obliged.
Eventually, I found myself at the beach. Unlike in Nice, this was an actual beach, not a bunch of little rocks that the tide comes upon. The sand was soft, the water was semi-warm and there were even some Mediterranean waves crashing up that a few people were trying to surf. I ended up hanging around for an hour or so. It didn’t hurt the situation that it was a topless beach. There were a handful of people who took it even a step further than that, but those people really shouldn’t have. A few of them made you glad that American beaches require people to keep their clothes on.
After the beach, I walked back around the port and up La Rambla on my way back to my hotel. I stopped at some shops and bought some souvenirs and stopped at one of the little cafes and had some pizza and sangria. I had to get back, though, because the highlight of my day was still to come and I didn’t want to be late for it. I’ll get to that in my next post.
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