19. Beautiful Barcelona

We were sad to be leaving Croatia but so excited to get to Spain starting with the weekend in Barcelona. We both loved our previous times in this amazing city and we're pumped for an epic weekend ahead and some time out on the town!

The airport transfer and boarding was super smooth and they had a special 'boarding truck' for those with mobility issues to get Dickey to the door of the plane. It was door to door service, literally. 

Landing in Barco was not so smooth and we had a 30 minute wait on the plane just to get off. We are used to being first on, last off but in this case it was such a wait that we even delayed the outgoing flight and had incoming crew leave us with the outgoing crew. Incredibly there is only one assistance team at the whole of Barcelona Airport and they were off tending to someone else when we arrived! The saving grace was that by the time we got to customs, passport control and baggage the rest of the flight was already gone.

Faulty Towers, gorgeous on the outside!

From the airport we caught the accessible shuttle to our hotel in the city. We were staying right near the Catalunya gardens and it was the first of many awesome public transport experiences in Spain. When booking our two nights in Barco the accommodation had all been coming up pretty expensive but we had thought ourselves super lucky when we found a well priced room at the City Park Pelayo Hotel. We told ourselves it didn't matter if it was old and sub par, we were in Barco to explore and make the most of the city but the reality when we arrived wasn't so laughable! What they had failed to advertise or even tell us when we checked in was that the hotel, which was magnificent on the outside, was in the middle of a major refurb and subsequently there was no aircon and they were have issues with the sewer system. Our 'accessible' room was a sauna and smelt like a septic tank. It was so small that Dickey couldn't get past the bed to the bathroom until we managed to move it the remaining 10 cm towards the wall. While the bathroom did at least have an inbuilt shower bench it was so bent and damaged that it hung at a 45o angle pointing to the floor and was completely unable to be used. 

Back down to reception we were offered an apology, free breakfast, a key to unlock the secured window, a tiny blow fan that looked and felt more like a foot heater and reassurance that they would have someone out to repair the shower bench the next day. We would see.

Getting out of 'faulty towers' with some haste we took off to explore and even though it was after 7pm by this time the vibe in the street was just amping up - so very Spanish. We wandered for the next couple of hours enjoying the warm night and reminiscing. We had the most fabulous meal in the piazza with the palm trees after joining the line at the most popular restaurant. It was so worth the wait and the seafood, especially the whole fried sardines and the Sangria were sensational. We were keen to kick on and wandered many lanes looking for the right place to go. We found our way back to the Enchanted Forrest Bar we each remembered from years before but the vibe was dead and it seemed to have become a tourist attraction over the years rather than the cool club it once was. We had been searching with our ears mainly and could hardly hear music coming from any bars. WE eventual realised that they all had double glazing and noise proofing! We tried a couple of other places, with no real success and then headed back to the hotel for a sweaty and smelly sleep.

The Enchanted Forrest Bar

Sunday we headed off in the morning for a free walking tour with Sandeman's and had the most awesome experience. This was up there with the best tour we had done and Erik our guide was just brilliant. An American ex-pat he sure knew his history. We explored Old Town and the Gothic Quarter, the Old Royal Quarters, Dali's church where he prayed and heard the story of how he died walking between this church and his La Familia Sagrada. We saw the ammunition damage in the squares, the many Catalunyan flags throughout the city, the monuments and statues. We heard stories of Spanish politics and the bid for independence of the local people who like the Basque were determined to fight to become Catalunyans, rather than Spanish. We saw so much, learnt so much and loved it all. Erik was also super inclusive of Dickey and always making sure he could not only get access by see and hear. He was a total champ. The tour finished at the gardens near the zoo and the most spectacular fountain I had even seen. To me, so much more beautiful than the Trevi and somehow we had never heard of this one or seen it on our last visits. Not only was the tour top notch we had meet a fantastic Aussie couple Paul and Julie and when they announced the other tours on offer we all agreed to sign up for that evenings Tapa Tour and regroup at 7pm that night.

Off on our own for the remainder of the afternoon we headed straight up to Dali's La Familia via the Arc del Triomf. It was sunny gorgeous afternoon and with ice creams in hand we marveled over the progress and architecture of the Church. I had seen it 8 years prior and Dickey around 12 years prior and from the sounds of things at those times it was in a similar state. For a building under construction since 1882 it seems in more recent years they have really knuckled down in a bid to finish it. It is mind blowing and so worth the visit. Unsure we would have the time to see it we didn't book the internal tour, but it is accessible and 100% on our list for when we go back to Spain in 2018. (Yes we are going back!)

Needing a nap pre the evening tour we caught the metro back to Faulty Towers and were again pleasantly surprised how easy it was to navigate and get around. Certainly the best so far on our trip. 

Back at faulty towers we discovered they had indeed come to fix the shower chair. Installing a raw cut steel pole to hold the seat at right angles and securing it with sharp unfinished bolts. The final result, while stable and able to function as a seat now proved to be nerve racking for anyone wanting to place bare skin on raw metal by way of transferring. (I'll leave you with that mental image!)

Meeting Paul and Julie we were excited for a great night out. True, we had a great time as a group, but this tour was certainly sub-par. The evenings guide was Eric (not Erik from this morning) and he was not on form at all that night. For the sake of this exercise we'll put it down to a bad night... It was a poorly planned and badly organised tour and we spent the majority of the night wandering between the bars and waiting, as opposed to tasting the tapas and learning the history of Tapa. In fact the highlight was tasting the long poor red wine and cider. When the tour was over it was like a stampede and the other 24 in the group couldn't get away quick enough. Starving after only trying a couple of bites of food all night we stayed on at the last bar having a fantastic time over wine and food with our new friends. In the end we made it a ripper night! 

Checking out of Faulty towers after our quick Barco weekend our next stop was Logrono, La Rioja and then on to San Sebastian. As a last minute idea we decided to get ourselves a car so we could explore the famed wine region more closely and equipped with our little Audi A1 we were on the road again.

Barcelona 4/6 - 6/6/2016