Barcelona

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Barcelona, the second largest city of Spain with its approximately 1.6 million inhabitants is also the capital of Catalonians. In 2 hrs. we flew from Munich in the city where traditions and modern trends complement one another. Barcelona is a great culture destination and therefore there were many tourists here. There were long queues at the entrances of the most well-known objects of interest. It seems that the city is an absolute must for sightseeing.

One of the best views of the city you can get it from the platform of the Columbus- statue and during a short trip with the cable-car from the port up to the Montjuic Hill. Both are very nice but you have mostly long waiting periods. The view over the port, to the sea and the Ramblas is really more than great.

Starting point for all Sightseeing-tours, whether by foot or with one of the many sightseeing-busses is the Placa Catalunya with the popular Cafe Zürich and this place is also the beginning of the legendary Ramblas. This long boulevard extends several boroughs down to the port.

It is the most popular boulevard of Barcelona. There are many different stands, flower shops, cafes, restaurants and the best street artists we have ever seen.

In the lower part of the Ramblas is the central market of Barcelona the “Mercat de la Boqueria”. Here you can find all goods from fresh fish to vegetable, fruits or meat and in addition to this all it is situated in very beautiful glass and iron hall.

Also the side lanes of the Ramblas are more than worth seeing. The surrounding of the cathedral with the small lanes and places are very nice and we stroll around for some hours. Again and again we find historical buildings, places, small shops and Tapas bars.

But what is Barcelona without Gaudi, the most famous architect of the city! But we had not so much luck with our Gaudi-Sightseeing-Tour. In front of every Building that we wanted to visit, there queue up many many tourists, coming by many many organized busses. There was no chance for us to go inside, except we would queue up for one or two hours, too.

So we had only a view at the front of the buildings, but these were already more than fascinating and unique. Perhaps we have more luck another time, if we visit Barcelona again in another season.

Also in the famous park Güell there were hundreds of tourists, too and it was very busy and noisy.

Barcelona is at all architecturally very interesting, on the one hand the many beautiful art nouveau fronts, on the other hand the ultramodern buildings from the 20th Century. It is a very good contrast between old and new, tradition and modern trend.

Everywhere in the city, from the centre, to the beach or the port, in front of museums and parks, you can see most different sculptures. Here is the unusual really not unusual!

We enjoyed this style-mix and the way of life here in Barcelona, but always the time was too short. We think, we will come again.
Not least also because of Uli, we knew her from our website and we had time by time contact over many years. Now we met her and we spent a beautiful, interesting evening together.

more photos from Barcelona

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