Hola Barcelona

This week I had my winter holiday so we went to Barcelona for a couple of days with my spouse. Before the trip I wondered what would be the right clothing there. According to forecasts there would be about 10-15 degree celcius which is something like our spring temperatures. So I took my spring coat and walking shoes with me. And for pick pockets I bought a purse which could be wrapped around my belly.

For Catalans it was still winter so I was almost the only one in spring feeling among the winter coats and boots. Only some Norwegian tourists shared my way of thinking.  I had a cardigan under the coat so I left the coat open to avoid getting too hot.  And what comes to pick pockets, we didn’t see them, or at least we didn’t them come near enough.

We climbed the fortress hill and walked around the gothic city and looked at Gaudi and also other cathedrals.   

And of course we popped in to nice cafes and restaurants for coffee or tapas. For the lunch we chose local places outside the tourist areas. The adventure in such a strategy was we had to guess what our lunch would be – our Spanish skills is limited and most of the Barcelona people think that two languages should be enough to master: Catalan and Spanish.

Our shopping was quite intensive and even I, being normally so selective, bought a lot of stuff: some jewelry, a pleated skirt, some blouses and casual shoes, a wonderful handbag…. The prices were quite reasonable in most of shops.   

And for the last evening in Barcelona we decided to go to Opera. We managed to get tickets to Tales of Hoffman performance. The performance was mostly excellent, though there were some troubles in synchronization with singers and orchestra, probably because of too deep stage. Also Hoffmann himself lacked some spirit when he tried to be too much “Juan Diego Flores”.

After the opera we went to our tiny hotel room to pack our things for our way back. The amount of luggage has increased in some peculiar way but we managed to stuff the things to our bags. We fell asleep instantly and waked up early to get to airport and flew back home with our souvenirs and memories of nice days in the capital of Catalans.