Barcelona: Camp Nou and Passing Thoughts

If you’ve followed this blog, or even know me, at all then you know that I’ve been trying to hit football matches all over the world, whenever possible. I was disappointed that I couldn’t go when I was in Madrid, but I couldn’t find anything reasonably priced between Madrid and Valencia. I didn’t have high hopes in Barcelona, either. Barça’s stadium, Camp Nou, usually sells out. Furthermore, I was leaving on Sunday, when the majority of La Liga Primera Division matches are played. The schedules are never set for certain until around a week ahead of time, so I figured I’d miss out here as well.

When I got to my hotel, I was wearing a D.C. United t-shirt and a San Lorenzo cap. I told the guy at the front desk that I was checking out on Sunday and he replied, “Oh, here for the Barcelona match and then leaving?” I told him that I didn’t know that the match was on Saturday and that if I could find something reasonable priced, I’d love to go. Before I was even properly checked in, he had gone online and found me an affordable ticket and it was being delivered to the hotel. This became my new favorite hotel.

The match was at 6:00 pm Barcelona time on Saturday afternoon. After rushing back to the hotel to get ready, I took the Metro to the stadium. It wasn’t many stops and the stadium was about four or five blocks from the station.

I won’t go into great detail regarding the match or the stadium. If you want further details, there eventually will be an article on my soccer blog World Club Rankings. I will go into a little detail, though. Camp Nou dates back to 1957 and seats a little over 98,000 people, so it is the largest soccer-only stadium I’ve ever seen, let alone visited. It hosts FC Barcelona, defending world champions and current semifinalists in the European Champions League. The team has the greatest player in the world in Lionel Messi, as well as several other international stars, such as Thierry Henri. My seats were in the upper southern corner of the stadium. And when I say upper, I mean upper. I was in the uppermost level in the very top row. Even from so far away, however, the seats were good enough to follow the action of the match. Barcelona won the match 3-1 to maintain its narrow lead over Real Madrid in the Primera Division.

After the match, I returned to the center of the city for dinner. I stopped in a café near the university that had a television on broadcasting the match between Real Madrid and Real Zaragoza. I had some beer and some pizza and watched that match. Other than trekking to the railway station this morning, that was pretty much it for my Barcelona adventures.

What? You want some passing thoughts on Spain? I’m glad you asked. I am planning on coming back to Spain for six weeks in the summer to watch the World Cup in Spanish bars and to take more Spanish classes. For months, I’ve been talking about taking the classes in Barcelona, but I’ve now changed my mind and decided to take the classes in Madrid. There are various reasons for that. First, Barcelonan speak Catalan, which is similar to Castillian, but not similar enough. It just makes more sense to learn Castellano in a place where it is the primary language. Second, Madrid is cheaper that Barcelona. Both can be a little touristy, but Madrid a little less so. Next, I like the centrality of Madrid. It’s location allows me to take weekend trips to virtually any place in Spain. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I just liked Madrid more than I did Barcelona. I had the best day of my entire trip in Barcelona and I still prefer Madrid, which should tell you how much I liked it.

As far as Valencia is concerned, I just didn’t get an opportunity to spend enough time there. I definitely hope to spend a weekend there during the summer.

That’s it for Barcelona and Spain. I just crossed the border into France. If all goes well, I will catch a train in Montpellier for Paris, but of course the last time I was in Montpellier, I got stranded there for two days, so I’m not yet counting any chickens. Wish me luck!!!

Barcelona: Best Day of the Trip

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.

Barcelona: A Tale of Two Days in One City

For me, Barcelona was a tale of two cities, or perhaps more accurately, two tales of one city. The first day and a half that I spent in the city, I was mildly disappointed because I think that I was expecting so much. My final day, however, probably was my favorite day of my entire European trip. Because of this, the overall score is kind of confusing.

I arrived in Barcelona on Thursday, early enough in the day that I could go out and at least see something. The weather was grey and windy, but at least it wasn’t raining, so I ventured out. The hotel was easy enough to fine and was close to the subway. The biggest landmark that I’m aware of in Barcelona is the Sagrada Família, so that’s where I went.

Sagrada Família is a cathedral that was started by Gaudi. In fact, it was his pretty much the only project of Gaudi’s over the last several years of his life. When he died in 1926, it was only partially complete and others continued to work on the structure after Gaudi’s death. Apparently, people are still working on it because there were cranes all around, scaffolding and other viewing obstructions surrounding the cathedral. (Actually, I read that it is supposed to be completed sometime around 2030.) I tried to take some pictures, but the bright grey sky behind it kept any of the pictures from coming out very well. (I’m including pictures in this post from my final day, which was a much more beautiful day.) I have to admit that I was pretty underwhelmed by the whole Sagrada Família experience, especially the first day. It’s touted as the eighth-wonder-of-the-world-in-the-making but it’s really just a large church with way too much going on. At least that’s my opinion. Others don’t seem to share it.

For dinner, I went to a tapas bar to try some things that I still hadn’t tried. I finally tried some Iberian ham. It was excellent, but being the southerner that I am, I came away thinking that Virginia ham was just as good and a lot less expensive – at least in Virginia. I also had a Russian Salad, which basically is a potato salad with egg and vegetables and mayonnaise. The highlight of the meal, however, was the patatas bravas. This consisted of fried potato chunks in a pair of sauces, one a spicy tomato-based sauce and the other a horseradishy-mayonnaise sauce. All of the tapas that I tried that night were very good, but the patatas bravas took the proverbial cake.

On my first full day I did something that I rarely do on these trips – I hit the tour bus. One of the reasons is that I enjoyed the little tour I had on the bus in Montpellier when I was trying to kill time. The other reason is that I was having trouble orienting myself in Barcelona and I thought it would give me a better idea of what the most prominent landmarks were in Barcelona and a general idea of where to find them. In this way, I figured that I could go back and hit the places with which I was most impressed.

The tour bus consisted of two lines – a western line and an eastern line. Both take between two and two-and-a-half hours. The bus isn’t really a good way to see any of the sights, but it is a good way to orient oneself with the city. On the western line, the highlights included the Olympic Stadium, Camp Nou and Plaza Espanyol. The highlight of the eastern line was the Sagrada Familía, though it was little more than a drive-by. Both tours started in Plaza Catalunya and went south to the monument of Columbus at the port and came in from the north past La Pedrera, another famous Gaudi work.

The day, Friday, also was La Diada de Sant Jordi, or St. George’s Day. Evidently, this day is celebrated in different ways in various places in which St. George is the patron saint. In Catalan culture, it is celebrated much like Valentines Day in the United States. Traditionally, women are given flowers and men are given books. Sounds a little sexist, but I think in modern times, both sides commonly get flowers and books. Like in the United States, there were people on every corner, as well as in between, selling flowers on this day and there also were hundreds of little outdoor bookshops opened for the day. On top of that, there were free concerts and street shows going on everywhere so the middle of the city was very crowded and very lively. I walked around with the crowds for a while, but the weather still wasn’t cooperating so I wasn’t out as long as I normally would have been.

I now had a general idea of what I wanted to do on my final full day in Barcelona. (The trip was much shorter than I had originally planned.) I was hoping the weather would finally cooperate but was willing to go with the flow in any event. The next day will be in the next post or two.