Barcelona Day 1

On my first scheduled week long holiday I went to visit Barcelona, Madrid, and Lisbon. It started off pretty damn early since I had to catch a 7:15am Easyjet flight at Luton Airport. I took 24hr bus from Paddington to Baker Street and from there, the Easybus to Luton. I actually got to Baker St a bit early and the Easybus man was nice enough to let me get on the early one. The ride took slightly less than an hour and I had this grand plan to sleep on the bus except my fellow passengers had other ideas and talked (loudly) all the way to the airport. It's fricken 5am people, go back to sleep! Maybe I really should get some noise canceling headphones. I did however managed some sleep on the flight to Barcelona, and surprisingly there was no delay and we even managed to park at the bridge so we didn't have to take the bus to the terminal.

I got through immigration quite quickly and proceeded to look for first the information desk before heading to the Aerobus. The Tourist information desk was probably one of the smallest I have seen but they were quite helpful and I got one of those 2 days unlimited travel tickets on the public transport system. No issues taking the Aerobus downtown to Plaça de Catalunya and from there, I took the Metro to the BnB I was staying at. When I got to my destination, since I walked the wrong direction, it did took me a little while to find the place but I got there in the end. It turned out to be directly in front of the Metro exit but on the other side of a 8 lanes road. I must mention that the BnB (Ana's Guesthouse) is really nice and if you ever go to Barcelona you should definitely check it out as an option. When I was there, there was another group of 3 people staying there and I pretty much had the whole place to myself so even though I was suppose to share the (massive) bathroom, it wasn't an issue in the end.

After checking in, I made my way around town. Firstly down the Passeig de Gràcia and looked at some of the Gaudi buildings before heading to the Montjuic Castle. At the Montjuic Castle, I took the cable car ride up because after a 4am start, I wasn't too keen on climbing that hill. The view on top was pretty good and since it was a nice clear day, I was able to see most of the city from there.

It was late afternoon by the time I headed back towards the city and since I have some time left I went to see the Sagrada Família. It's an odd looking church and the tour guide said they estimate the entire building to be finished by 2030. Since it is funded by donations and they still have not worked out the design to parts of the structure yet this estimate is subject to change.

I ate dinner near Sagrada Família and it was OK. I headed back to the BnB first to rest a little before going to the game at Camp Nou!