If you’ve been following along you’ll know that I am currently on a girls trip in Barcelona. We arrived in the early hours of Friday morning. There is a 1 hour time difference despite the flight only be being 2 hours.
Our airbnb is amazing. This is why it’s good to be friends with people who take you out of your comfort zone. Call me a snob or old fashioned, but never in my life would I have considered this. I just naturally gravitate towards hotels. What I would say is that we did our homework (thank you Jelena, Alex and Ieva). We picked somewhere with great reviews and detailed pictures and boy were we not disappointed. The apartment is kind of Parisian in style with high ceilings , but then there is a massive cherub painting on the ceiling- googling tells me it’s Baroque in style and most likely draws an 16th century Italian art.
So after getting some much needed shut eye we woke up and hit the town. First stop Park Guelle. So the story here is that Eusebio Guell commissioned Antoni Gaudi to design the park. It is a series of gardens with pops of great architecture. As you can see its gorgeous. We booked our tickets in London before we arrived. If you’re planning to go then you should do the same as the queues can be very long. Tickets are around 7 euros I think and it’s well worth it to see natural beauty and a bit of impromptu singing by some long haired men.
After that we walked to Segarda Familia which is about 30 mins walk from the park. We didn’t go inside, but wow the outside. First of all the place is huge and still expanding. Again Gaudi has a massive influence here. Construction first began in 1882 under Francisco Paula de Villar but then he resigned a year later. Gaudi took over but only managed to complete around 25% of the structure before his death in 1926. Between many disruptions including the Spanish civil war, a dependency on donations and a host of architects,you get the hodgepodge that is segarda familia. Will it ever be finished? Who knows.
For lunch we stopped off in Mercat Santa Caterina. It’s actually a market but there is the most amazing seafood bar inside. We picked a selection of dishes including calamari, pardon peppers, oysters, huge prawns and a few bits on the side. It was delicious and after two glasses of wine we were veritably stuffed.
After that we took a very long walk to the beach and sat at a bar on the sea front drinking and chatting for hours. You can’t underestimate the power of a good chin wag with your girls and boy did we chat. So pre drinks over, we went back to the apartment and got ready for a night out. Now I was expecting music and dancing, but we went to a bar called 33|45. It’s a sit down vibe with a really eclectic mix of people.
We talked the night away. The best thing about being a group of 4 is being able to split off. Two of my friends decided to go off to a club whilst me and my other friend headed back to the apartment. As I write this it’s clearly the day after and I can tell you we made the right choice because we have had a jam packed day and are heading out again shortly. I’ll be sure to update you on today’s antics.
T
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