Beautiful Barcelona

Part two of my adventurous weekend abroad took place in the lovely city of Barcelona. This was by far my favorite city so far. Most of that decision was probably based on the fact that is was 60s and 70s and sunny. Coming from Russia, anything above 35 felt warm. Above you see me running on the beach of the Mediterranean sea. No big deal. We arrived late in the evening and checked into our hostel, located on the famous and busy road La Rambla.

Here is the view from our hostel balcony. Everywhere we went we saw either sycamore trees or palm trees. My two favorites! After settling in, showering for the first time in 2 days, and eating some food, we took a 30 minute walk around the harbor area, minutes away from our hostel. The next day was packed full of sightseeing and, of course, lots and lots of walking.

We started by going down to Port Vell, a beautiful harbor with tons of ships and lots of palm trees.

After a relaxing rest on the beach we made our way to Olympic Port, which was built for the 1992 Olympics. Apparently the fish sculpture in the above photo is famous for the Olympics.Our next destination was the incredible Sagrada Familia. During our hike over there we stumbled across a game of football (soccer). It was a beautiful day to sit and watch a community soccer game between boys that looked to be age 3-4. They were soooo tiny and adorable out there kicking the ball around.

After walking quite a distance we finally made it to Sagrada Familia. This church was designed by Antoni Gaudi. Construction began in 1882 and is predicted to be finished by 2030! To read more about it, click here.

We took a different route back to the hostel and got to see a lot more really unique architecture. This city definitely stood out to me as being completely different than anything I have ever seen. Makes American cities seem incredibly boring to look at. After a short rest in the hostel, we hiked up the mountain to get a good view of the city at night.

We continued a little further in time to catch the magic fountain show. The whole area was filled with waterfalls and fountains with lights all moving to the beat of music. The show lasted 30 minutes. The amount of people there to watch the show was incredible.

As the show ended we walked down the main road toward a traffic circle. There was an old bull fighting arena there that had been turned into a mall. There was an observation deck on the roof, so of course we had to go check it out. On our return journey to the hostel we stopped the eat some authentic paella, Spain's national dish. I checked on Google maps to see how much we walked that day, and it totaled 12 miles! We sure slept good after that! As tired as I was the next morning, I wanted to make sure I made it to the sun rise over the harbor. I was not disappointed. Barcelona was in the top ten places to watch the sunrise!

We were told we were not allowed to leave Barcelona without going to Guell Park. Looking at it on our map we thought it was just a nice green grass park with some sort of pond or something nice. We were very pleased to find out that it was above and beyond our expectations.

This park was full of architecture designed by the same genius who designed the Sagrada Familia. The park not only looked really cool, it was also on top of a mountain, so you could see all of Barcelona! Read more about the park by clicking here.

We ate lunch at this location. Jealous?

Bottom line, you should make an effort to visit Barcelona before you die.