Barcelona, Spain

I've been back from Barcelona for a little over a week now. It was such an amazing week, I had so much fun and wish I could've stayed longer (although I couldn't really have afforded it, it was so expensive over there!). Barcelona is such a beautiful city, there's tons to see, lots of whimsical architecture, palm trees everywhere (I was getting rather obsessed about these for some reason :p), seaside, lots of sunshine and warm/hot weather.. It was pretty depressing to come back to the rain and cold of England. ..and to think that me and Matt probably won't be able to afford another holiday again in a few years... *sigh*



This is one of the many postcards I bought for myself. It says 'Ciutat Vella' on the back of the card - Ciutat Vella is the old part of the city, comprising of Barri Gòtic, El Raval, La Ribera, Sant Pere, Santa Caterina and Barceloneta. The picture on this card looks like it could be from Barri Gòtic, which was also probably my favourite area of the city we visited. I loved all the narrow streets and alleys, old historical buildings, all the little details, laundry hanging outside and other signs of "ordinary life", tiny shops and the atmosphere in general, even if it was packed with tourists so it's probably not all that "authentic" in the end. There were lots of amazing little ice cream and frozen yoghurt shops in Barri Gòtic, too, I know I'm going to miss them. My favourite was Gelaaati!, I liked it enough to go there twice and wouldn't have minded visiting it more.. :p I know the place isn't exactly Spanish but on this occasion I didn't mind too much. Otherwise it was really depressing to find all the Spanish restaurants to be so expensive and half the time me and Matt actually ended up eating in places like Burger King or KFC because we couldn't afford Spanish food all the time (we were lucky in that the breakfast in our hotel was so good and we didn't need to eat out so much thanks to that. They even had churros with hot chocolate! ..and manchego cheese which I loved). That was one of the only things I didn't like about the place and found really upsetting.

The hotel we stayed in wasn't very centrally located, but it was within walking distance from Plaça d'Espanya, and one evening we walked over to see the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc. It really was amazing, such a cool thing to see! Some of the music choices were a bit weird - music from 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Gladiator', for instance. They did play 'Barcelona' by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé, though, which made me happy.

Did I say I want to go back?!?