BARCELONA AT FIRST GLANCE

We headed straight to The Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria at Le Rambla, this is a market containing a vast amount of fruits, fresh seafoods and other local delectables. There are many butchers and fishmongers offering traditional chorizos and crustaceans as well. It was hustling and bustling busy, as local people shop for their grocery before the market closes for siesta. In Spain, it is very popular for people to take short naps before going on about with their day. They usually eat dinner at a much later time as well, the metro which is equivalent of tube in London will close around 12pm though.

Trying to talk Spanish

This is my first time to visit Spain properly, the other time I was heading straight from Barcelona airport to the cruise ship. Having little idea of how to navigate to our accommodation, we managed to find it after some excursion around town. The roads and streets are quite similar and getting lost is not a problem. Most local people we met, couldn’t converse with us in English or rather they couldn’t understand us, luckily I did download a Spanish translation app and few offline maps and metro apps. Trying to converse in Spanish as if I were a local by using the translation app sometimes worked with a few gestures.

Back to the Market 

Bursting with colours, a delicious aroma of freshly made bread and various spices can be observed. The colourful stands are almost neon to the eye with interesting textures popping everywhere, every stand deserved some attention. We all have tried out most of the local speciality food and most certainly indulged in a few tropical fruit smoothie, the coconut smoothies that I have tried was very decant and smooth, definitely recommend this and there are choices to mix it with fruits.

The fruits are at a bargain price, very well presented. We have some of the most exotic fruits on display. Get spoiled with choices to make, there are star fruits, passion fruits even tamarinds. What would you choose? Trying from a few stands, we shared most of the hunts that we found. Most fruits are for €1 per kg or a handful, that is a very good price.  

Here we are trying the shaved Spanish ham, I found it quite endearing. It has a special cured taste to it that is unforgettable. This cured ham is usually made from black Iberian pigs that are fed on barley and maize and only produced from south and south-western of Spain. It is one of the world’s most expensive ham and not easily available abroad elsewhere. It is also known as jamón iberico or pata negra and goes very well with bread or just on its own as a tapas.

Me trying out the juiciest oyster, splashed with some tabasco sauce and zest of lemon and it is ready to eat. It only costed €2 which is around £1.45 per oyster so it was quite a bargain for us.

Enjoying Gaudi 

Next destination was Parc Güell, one of Antoni Gaudi’s architecture art works, influenced by a lot of gothic and art nouveau style at that era, such natural structures follow nature’s design and it looks quite organic. Built between 1900 to 1914, taking almost 14 years just to complete this building and renovation is always ongoing. Gaudi became the national icon in Spain and he has influenced a lot of the culture of buildings. Combining art and architecture at the finest, he produced art and functionality at the same time. The Gaudi’s effect has styled some architectures and stands out among other buildings. He has a thing for juxtapositioning different geometric masses together, forming a new outlook to the perspective of what buildings should look or be made of.

Gaudi’s work reflects a very unique and distinctive style, very inspirational to dare to be different and stand out among the crowd. The architecture contains a lot of organic shapes, curves and interesting ornaments. Parc Güell was meant to be a public park and now is one of the world’s heritage site, certainly the charms of Gaudi, made the visit to Barcelona extra worthwhile. Gaudi’s house museum is also there, showing where the architect and his family lived at that time. Local people have free access to Parc Güell as a recreational park.

Then taking up a walk, you will come to a panoramic view of Barcelona complete with a beautiful structure in sight. You will be able to see quite far from here, even the port where it leads to the beach and sea.

Trying to swim at Barceloneta Beach 

Next headed to Port Barcelona, W hotel is just behind us, looking like the Burj Al Arab from Dubai, well that is what it remind me of anyway. Remember not to eat at the restaurants that are specifically tailored for tourists, the value for price and quality is low. Local people eat where there are Spanish menu only, whereas tourist food places have a menu with most of the world’s languages available.

Barceloneta Beach at night is spectacular, however the water will be a bit too cold for swimming. I was imagining hot sands beaches and sunny attire, guess that the season is not ripe yet. Beach Volleyball and other games were full at swing, some people hired out segways or electric scooters to transport themselves on the beach.

Here is the Vlog:

There will be an apartment tour of the room already messy, not my mess though haha. The drinking fountains featured in the video, legend says that whoever drinks from the main fountain in Le Rambla will always come back to Spain for some more, don’t know if that is true or not but we didn’t get a chance to try it anyway. The next blog and video will be up soon, keep in touch and we shall talk soon :)