barcelona = my new love (part one)

back in march, when tanner and i knew we were going to paris again the next month, we were trying to figure out a side trip. we narrowed it down to three options -

1. southern france. my family spent a week(ish) in nice, france and none of us were blown away... actually, we weren't too impressed even. but, i thought something must be wrong with us since most of  the world thinks its awesome, so i thought i should give it another chance.

2. southern italy. tanner has never been to italy, and since we are both overly obsessed with pasta (and love our breads, pizza and any form of ice cream aka. gelato) we know we'd have a blast based on that alone. so we know we will be travelling there at some point in our lives... but i've already done rome, florence, venice and pisa so i thought maybe we could do a few days in the south exploring the overly beautiful coast.

3. barcelona. my grandparents served a mission in madrid so my family went out to visit them while they were serving. we enjoyed madrid, but i was so bummed we never went to barcelona cause thats where i really wanted to go. 

so those were our options. i first ex-ed southern france cause i've already been and i like exploring new places. then i decided that i've always wanted to go to barcelona, so i figured that would be a perfect side trip for tanner and i... especially since tanner speaks spanish (even though its different).

i can't even tell you how happy we were with our decision to go to barcelona. i quickly fell in love with that city and would love to go back some day. so are you ready to see too many pictures of tanner and i? lets get started- 

april 10th

we arrived in barcelona at night and didn't really know what we were doing. we knew we were supposed to get on a train to get into the city, so we found the train stop at the airport and got on the only train that was there and figured we'd be good. because there were no maps on the train that showed the whole train cycle/line i started to get a little worried since we had no idea where we were going. luckily tanner's iphone worked and we just searched for our hotel, put it into the maps app, and watched as the dot slowly moved in the direction of our hotel. we got off at a random spot that seemed close, and ended up only being a few blocks away from our hotel. thank you iphone. 

we passed casa batllo and casa amatller on our walk to our hotel, which were on my list of things to see. these side-by-side buildings looked gorgeous at night and it was quite the welcome into the city and made me so excited the next day. we walked about two more blocks and got to las ramblas, which is the super long, famous street full of restaurants and shopping... which is also where our hotel was located.

we were both hungry so we headed back out to a restaurant that the concierge recommended. even though it was almost midnight, the restaurant was packed (and of course there was a table of drunk, super loud americans...) and i'm so glad we went. it was a tapas restaurant, which is pretty much where you order a variety of food that comes out on little plates that you share... sort of like mini appetizers or something. so tanner and i got about 6 different things, and loved almost everything we ordered. and yes, it felt a little weird to be late night party animals again... its been a while since we've been out past 1am.

april 11th

this was our one full day in barcelona so we tried taking full advantage. after walking around to find a bakery for a light breakfast, we stumbled upon casa mila, yet another thing on my list to see. so we finished our food while in line to head in.

as a side note, antoni gaudi is a big deal in barcelona, and i'm glad i was able to learn about him and how much he influenced this amazing city. tanner automatically loved him because he was a vegetarian (tanner loves anyone who's meat free like him), but if you want to hear a brief history about him, you can check out my 2nd and strand post i did about gaudi and just a few of his amazing creations we saw while in the city.

but here are pictures from casa mila, a unesco heritage site that antoni gaudi designed.

in the background you can see la sagrada familia, and if you look to the right you can notice the torre agbar (i didn't get any pictures of that from closer...but its really pretty during the day when the sunlight hits it)

i loved the row of buildings below. its a nice example of the range of architecture you see throughout the city... very historic buildings (some of the interior of the buildings have been renovated, but they kept the facade) mixed with "modernista" (art nouveau) and contemporary styles. i loved it.

the mountain in the background is mount tibidabo. any friends fans? remember when ross was on a date and he told a story of hiking mount tibidabo and she corrected him on the pronunciation? gotta love friends.

when we were done with casa mila, we walked down the street (again passing casa batllo and amatller... i had no idea these buildings were only blocks away from each other!) to head to a bike tour. the sun was out and it was a beautiful day... which was a nice change from the drab paris weather we had been in. anyways, i really enjoyed this street. the sidewalks were large and it was really pretty.

since the street we were on ran parallel to las ramblas we cut back over to walk down the popular street. it was crowded and lively with stores and restaurants lining the street, with smaller vendors, outdoor dining spaces, and street performers in the middle walkway.

looking super dorky in front of la boqueria... more pictures in the next post.

we made it down to the columbus monument where we got a sandwich and sat around the circle to wait for our bike tour. and we waited... and waited. then we called the bike tour place and i guess they don't do it anymore. so much for that great idea, biking around the city would have been great. 

so instead we made our way over to barcelona cathedral

 and then walked around the exterior since we decided not to pay to go in.

then we walked over to the macba, and again, decided not to go inside (i probably wouldn't have walked here but i for some reason thought the building would be cooler) but we passed through some beautiful streets as we wandered.

then we went over to the mnac (museum of national art of catalonia) in the palau nacional. we went inside and saw some very recognizable pieces of art (including some picasso's that we couldn't photograph), but it was worth the trip if only for the view from outside the museum. it really was an amazing views of the whole city.

apparently the fountains shown in the picture are amazing when they are on... but unfortunately they are only on certain days so we missed out.

self portrait of salvador dali

after having a not so tasty snack outside of the museum enjoying the view again, we finally ventured to our last stop of the day: montjuic. we rode the tram up and had fun hanging out at the fortress.

after we were done walking around montjuic, we went back into the city to get a late dinner. we ended up at a random tapas restaurant that was good, (not as amazing as our first restaurant the night before) that was across from casa batllo and casa amatller.

that was the end to our one full day in barcelona, and this is the end of the longest blog post in the history of the world. here we go for part two (that luckily for us all shouldn't be nearly as long)...