Train to Barcelona

April 19.

After a leisurely breakfast we checked out and schlepped our bags downhill to the train station. Since there were so many trains a day to Barcelona we didn't have to wait long for one to depart. Once we placed our bags in a rack, we found a pair of seats and settled in for the hour or so ride to the city.

Not long after we were underway we began chatting with our seatmate. His company is in Barcelona but he mostly works from his home south of the city. We talked about life and its unusual twists and turns and discussed issues both large and small. He was a fascinating conversationalist, and we enjoyed the banter back and forth. To top it off he was very familiar with the scene in Mel Brooks' movie History of the World where Moses comes down the mountain with three tablets of 15 commandments but drops one. . . And very generous too: he gave us his card before we left the train and said if we ever got lost or needed help to give him a call. 

Barcelona Sants train station

an easy walk to the hotel

Once out of the station -- again by the kindness of the station staff acknowledging our Eurail passes to get us through the turnstiles -- we headed off to the hotel. A short walk made a bit longer as a consequence of going down the wrong street for about 10 minutes before realizing our error.

We eventually found the right street and were soon checked in and settled in.

Our lone objective for the day was to find the hop-on-hop-off bus system and get a clear tourist-eye lay of the land. Barcelona is BIG and it would be easy to spend one's time walking around aimlessly. We located where the busses begin/end their tours at Plaça Catalunya, about a 30-minute walk from our hotel, down the seemingly endless wide, tree-lined boulevards.

  

Once we reached the Plaça de Catalunya we easily spied the double-decker busses and made our way to the ticket booth. 

We opted for the Barcelona City Tour company; the other system of tour buses is called the Barcelona Buses Touristic. Both companies share the same start/end locations and the routes are somewhat similar as well. 

A base ticket was good for 24 hours (upgradable to 48 hours). The tour is made up of two distinct routes, and we thought that would be plenty of time to cover both tour routes. We began with the orange route (and would continue tomorrow with the green). Coincidentally, the tail end of the orange route would let us hop-off at the Sants railroad station thus allowing us to easily get back to the hotel.

We found a place topside in the sun and off we went. The journey was slow and ponderous due to heavy Friday afternoon traffic but the slowness of the journey gave us a fine opportunity to see not just the scheduled hop-off sights but get a fuller sense of the city as a whole.

The one downside was the late afternoon gusty wind which stirred up all the leafing-out tree debris, filling our eyes with grit. So we opted to go down and sit inside for much of the trip. Along the route we passed some of the city's major attractions, including:

Arc de Triumf

statue honoring Christopher Columbus

the World Trade Center

From the port area the bus made its way up nearby Montjuïc past the Fundacio de Joan Miro.

And then back down the hill to Plaça d'Espana. Since our hotel is located just a 10-15 minute walk from this plaça, we knew we'd be back here soon. Besides containing spaces for various expositions (a bridal show was underway), the plaça is also the the location for the commercial centre Las Arenas. After years of neglect this former bullfight ring was, inevitably perhaps, turned into an indoor shopping mall.

Plaça de'Espanya, view from the top of Las Arenas

From the plaça it was a short hop to the Sants station where got off for the day and walked back to the hotel. 

That evening we found a small Asian restaurant a couple of blocks from our hotel and had a pair of simple rice dishes for dinner.

Next: Barcelona in a big way.