Barcelona: Home to stunning beaches, amazing pinchos and, coincidently, Heather’s older cousin whom we have been staying with the past few days.
Like I said in my previous post, in order to get from Granada to Barcelona we had to take a 13 hour overnight bus ride (which I was positively dreading). However, it turns out taking the overnight bus was quite possibly one of our best decisions all trip! 1. It saved us money by not having to pay for a hostel that night, and 2. the time flew by because I was actually able to sleep almost the entire bus ride. Probably just because I was so utterly exhausted after hostel-living for almost two weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I love hostels and meeting new people, but I could definitely do without the chorus of snoring at night.
The bus pulled into the station at around 1:00 p.m. Heather and I gathered our gear and set out to go find her cousins’ apartment. A half mile walk and a tram ride later, we arrived at his doorstep with giant backpacks in tow and stomachs growling. We dumped our bags and set off to go find something to eat. The nice thing about staying with someone who is local is they know all the good places to eat, so Stephen took us to a restaurant that sells pinchos. Pinchos are sort of like tapas in the sense that they are small plates of food, but are different because they are all displayed on a counter so you can clearly see what you are getting, and they are also all only one euro each.
The second day Stephen gave us a grand tour all throughout Barcelona. Starting in Park Güell, we walked down to the famous Sagrada Família, through the old town and along the beach. It was great having our own personal tour guide and not having to worry about maps or getting ourselves lost.
On our third and final day in Barcelona, we decided to take a day trip to the city of Montserrat and do some hiking (as if we hadn’t been walking enough already). Getting to the top of the mountain requires a metro, cable car and tram ride. After two hours. we finally made it. The views were incredible, and we did a three hour circular loop that left our legs burning by the end. Once we arrived back in Barcelona, we went out with Stephen to get some pinchos as our last supper and ended the night with a movie.
Barcelona was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed staying with Heather’s cousin – not only because of the amazing breakfast he made us every morning, but also just because he was fun to be around. It was also an added perk that he let us do some much needed laundry during our stay.
As I write this I am en route to Madrid – the final stop in this grand tour around Spain. While I must admit I am very sad to be leaving this beautiful country, I could not be more excited to venture down to Morocco. The falafel is practically calling my name
P.S. I will add more picture to this blog post later, as well as all of the pictures from my trip to the photo section of my blog soon. The wifi on the bus is awful and will not let me do so for some reason right now.