Around the World in 8000 days: Barcelona - The city and the Grand Prix

Welcome to our travel blog. We are Tabitha and Nic. In 2011 we 'retired' in our early 40s and set off to travel the world. We spent our first year in South America and have been lucky enough to make two trips to Antarctica.

Our blog is a record of our travels, thoughts and experiences. It is not a guide book, but we do include some tips and information, so we hope that you may find it useful if you are planning to visit somewhere we have been. Or you may just find it interesting as a bit of armchair travel.

Sunday, February 26, 2017

Barcelona - The city and the Grand Prix

Barcelona Cathedral, Barcelona

We stayed for 7 nights in Barcelona, splitting our time about equally between seeing Gaudi’s designs (see separate blog posts), and other things - including the Spanish Grand Prix, our first Formula 1 race. Ignoring the Gaudi part, there is of course plenty enough to make a trip worthwhile.

We stayed in the L’Eixample area, on Calle Mallorca. It was a decent base for sightseeing, and certainly for an introduction to Gaudi, being a few blocks from Passeig de Gracia and a few in the other direction from La Segrada Familia. Tourist buses were close (the blue and red routes between them cover all the main sights), and there are 4 stops nearby on the extensive Metro.

The downside is that it’s not the liveliest area to go out/eat at night, but there are some places around. Also, rooms aren’t especially cheap, but that goes for Barcelona generally. Our ‘boutique hotel’ was fine, but not a patch on some we’ve stayed in using that term; still, the location mostly made up for that.

Barri Gotic, Barcelona

Despite the good public transport, walking around the different central areas of Barcelona helped to give the feel of each area and to see how they link together. We did quite a lot of walking - much of it in circles when trying to find our way around Barri Gotic. It was a great place for wandering, the streets behind the cathedral being especially atmospheric, albeit over-full of street buskers.

The cathedral itself is a gothic-lover’s dream, with extra Spanish touches. Strangely, many places in Barri Gotic seemed shut on both days that we were there – maybe due to the bank holiday – but we found a couple of decent bars: Carlos and Matilda (small, friendly, good cocktails, outside seats) and Ginger (cosy like an old library, had good vermouth).

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

We only had a brief introduction to a few other areas. From L’Eixample down to Born was a decent walk, past the Arc de Triomf of 1888 and some grand buildings.

Born itself seemed very pleasant for relaxing in, although we didn’t get to do that as we were heading for the cathedral before closing time.

Mercat de la Boqueria, Barcelona

We also walked a fair way along Las Ramblas, which generally weren’t anything special. The main exception to this was a diverse and lively food market (Mercat de la Boqueria), which made it a shame that we’d already eaten plenty at brunch.

We certainly succeeded in our attempt to not see too many tourist sights on this trip, but there are many more for next time.

Las Ramblas, Barcelona

Whilst in town we saw the Spanish Grand Prix, billed as a big showdown of Hamilton and Rosberg, team-mates neck-and-neck at the top of the F1 drivers’ championship. So it was a big anti-climax when they crashed into each other on Lap 1 and went out before passing us even once!

We found it a bit hard to follow the race as the big screens were too far away (and of course you don’t get the TV commentary). We also saw almost no overtaking; we’d get tickets on the straight if we went to a race again. Still, it was fun to see the race unfold and watch the changing positions of the 4 leaders, and it was surprisingly not that loud, although the sun was baking in most seats (including ours).

In terms of places to eat and drink near our hotel, we mostly did quite well. The best place we ate on our stay was by accident, on day one: La Sopa Boba (Carrer del Bruc), a tapas place with much style and tasty food, and friendly staff who explained each dish; not like the many places that didn’t try that hard in food or service. We would have gone back but for bank holiday closures. Another time, hopefully!

Barcelona Grand Prix, 2016

We had Tabitha’s birthday brunch in Jaime Beriestain (Carrer de Pau Claris), a combined café/restaurant and interiors store, doing food all day, including very tasty cakes, in a relaxed and classy atmosphere.

Cerveteria Catalana had good tapas and was very buzzy/popular (but, despite the name, a limited beer choice). Plaza Dr Latamendi was generally a relaxed place for nightlife, a bit less touristy, and we enjoyed an authentic and very tasty Argentinean meal there, at Pampero. Food and drink seems a suitable place to finish this blog, a lot of Barcelona being about relaxing, and that will certainly help to tempt us back again.