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Today I wanted an overview of Barcelona so I bought a one day ticket on the Barcelona Bus Turistic (aka hop-on-or-off bus). During the winter they only have two routes the red or the blue. The blue bus didn't start until 11am and since I got to the Placa de Catalunya around 10:45 the red bus was the only one availabe. Which was fine since I had to go to church first and what better place to start a Sunday than the most famous church in all of Barcelona...Sagrada Familia. There was a crowd miling around the whole building and several tour buses were parked in front. I had my breakfast (protein bar and water) across the street with a view of the church. It is such an amazing structure! Gaudi started building the church several decades ago and it is still unfinished. The admission ticket helps pay for the building of the church since Gaudi didn't want any private or corporate funding but he wanted the public to help build this church. Tour guides quote Gaudi as saying "my client is in no hurry" when people would ask him how long it will take to finish this church.
The red bus continues to the north part of the city, you can jump off any of the numerous stops including Park Guell, Tibidalbo and the FC Barcelona club. I wanted to head to Montjuic so when there was a stop that had both blue and red buses on it I got out and jumped on the blue bus. This was the one that took you up to Montjuic, which means mountain of the Jews since it used to just be a Jewish Cemetery on this hill. Now it houses several gardens, museums, ampitheaters, restaurants, Monjuic Castle, and the Olympic Stadium. If you watched the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona you have seen Montjuic.
By the time the bus got to Monjuic I was hungry! Eating a protein bar for breakfast isn't very filling and I smelled something good stepping off near the Telefrice de Montijuic stop. A restaurant across the street that looked like it had an awesome view of the city (and it did!). It was a good thing this restaurant was nearby because as soon as I crossed the street this weird looking guy started following behind me. Mind you I had my mace in my front pocket so if he was going to try anything I was bringing it out! Fortunately this nice old man was manning the door to the restaurant and I was able to "speak" to him. Yeah it was a mix of English and somewhat memorized though totally butched Spanish. But he pulled out the menu and the food described sounded good. I took the elevator one level down to the entry way and fortunately the maitre de spoke English.
The view was amazing! You could see the spires of the Sagrada Familia, the tower of the Tibidaldo and the whole city. As for the food....yummy! I started off with a pumpkin soup that had arugula and scallops, then the entree was paella. I had to use my hands to de-shell the shrimp but the waiters were so attentive and provided me with a moist towelette to clean up afterwards, instead of dessert I had cafe con leche. Okay y'all know I'm a big coffee buff so let me just say that European coffee beats Starbucks hands down no questions!!! The plating of the dishes along with the view and service made lunch quite and experience and it wasn't even long just an hour or so.
Well after that meal I needed to work it off. So I wandered around Montjuic for a little bit trying to find the entry to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya which has another awesome view. If you've watched "Cheetah Girls 2" you will recognize it since this is where the first Barcelona scene takes place. Then I wandered around the corner to find more views of the city, a garden that set off from the roadway and plenty of stairs to climb. There was also the Torre de Calatrava, which is this cool radio tower made by a Spanish sculpture who was inspired by the Olympic toarch. Lots of little kids around too, aparently High School Musical on Ice was nearby and a soccer game was happening later on in the evening.
I got back on the bus to finish off the tour thinking I could head to the Chocolate Museum. Yeah forgot it was Sunday and it closed by the time the bus wound its way down near it. So I will have to hit that museum when I get back. I wandered around the back streets off Las Ramblas for awhile waiting for it to get dark because I wanted to take the bus tour at night. There were some street performers that was amusing and an old castle like building that had a Christmas Fair outside it. Lots of Kodak moments there.
The night time bus ride was awesome! Just seeing the lights go on gives you a new view of the city. I couldn't really take any good pictures because I've yet to figure out how to do night shots while in a moving vehicle with my camera. So you will just have to take my word for it. I sat at the top of the double decker bus again and let me tell you it was cold!!! Thankfully I had packed my scarf and socks because my feet and fingers were frozen after about 10 minutes. The view on top was spectacular. The bakery where I had planned to get my night time meal and hot chocolate was closed. (Again with things closing so early on a Sunday here!) So I had to settle for another protein bar and coke with water as my dinner.
I'm off to Valencia tomorrow.
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