Barcelona, the center of the anti-fascist rebels during the Spanish Civil War, the home of the 1992 Olympics, the city with no hotels under $400...We had booked all our hotels for our trip before we left. All but Barcelona. I couldn't find anything online for under $400, and thought for sure something would open up later on. As it turns out; Formula One was in town, (that's the Euro version of NASCAR), and everything was sold out. After several days of frantic searching on Craigslist by Lindso, she finally secured an apartment 15 miles outside Barcelona in Premia De Mar, for a reasonable $100 a night. This ended up being one of the best experiences of our trip. We stayed in a nice little town right on the Med with great beaches. We spent a whole day there and enjoyed the relaxation after wayyyy too much driving over the previous three days.
The next day we headed into Barcelona by the quick, cheap, and scenic train. Barcelona is a bustling, crowded city! While Madrid seemed somewhat deserted on the Sunday that we were there, Barcelona on a Formula One Saturday is packed! We walked along the tourist trail seeing all the required Gaudi architecture, which is indeed quite pretty and strange. The Sagrada Familia is especially huge and strange, and nowhere near finished. We traversed the length of La Rambla which is kind of like Boulder's Pearl Street except with three times the people and four times the body odor. I still liked it though Lindso was a bit put off by the mass of people packing you in from all sides.
The shopping in Barcelona was the best we had found. As it was our last stop in Spain, we grabbed some Spanish fashion to bring home. After a long day of walking we forced ourselves to a trip up the funicular to Montjuic, the home of the Olympic Stadium. Great views were had there, though we were too tired to actually find the stadium. Time to call it a trip!
