To say we were a little nervous about joining a tour of at least 50 aussies is an understatement! Luckily we found most to be good sorts (when they lost the ashes and the rugby!) and started our trip to see 4 Spanish cities in 10 days in the mighty Barcelona.
Barcelona was an amazing city with their main street, La Rambla, bursting with street vendors, buskers and even crazy pet shops. This led down to the beautiful waterfront and views of the castle on the hill and fabulous boats. We saw La Sagrada Familia, the crazy cathedral that they have been building for over 100 years and are on track to finish in 2030, beached it and climbed two grand view points for amazing views over the city and harbour.
On our second night in BCN we headed out for tapas with the group and enjoyed a jug of sangria and choosing from the picture tapas menu. We later were taken to the magic fountain that put on a fab music and light show and an unusual night club for the first our expensive drinks of the trip. We thought 6€ was bad!
Thankfully we were saved the 14 hour + coach and ferry trip to get to Ibiza and flew there in just under an hour to commence the ibizan festivities!
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The rain in Spain falls mainly on the... hey, what rain?
Barcelona was hot. Very hot. So hot, in fact, that I can’t stress enough how bloody boiling it actually was. We barely saw a cloud the whole time we were there, and even the sea was a good 20-odd degrees.
It’s a beautiful city, too. The marina was nice, with some uber-expensive boats and super-yachts mooring, and La Rambla was a buzzing street not unlike the Champs-Elysee in Paris. We had a front row seat for the Font Magica fountain’s spectacular night-time lights and water show (we even got wet!), and we caught a cable car up to a castle overlooking the city during some free time from the group.
We were apprehensive about touring Spain with the Fanatics, an Australian tour group, but it was heaps of fun. Of the 50 or so on tour, there were five Kiwis, one South African and one Canadian. Sure they gave us a bit of shet, but we were helped out by the Brits winning the Ashes and the All Blacks retaining the Bledisloe. Giving them shit was too easy – almost like kicking a man when he’s down – and no way to make friends. Fortunately there’s nothing quite like a uniquely horrible experience in a foreign country for making friends.
The plan on our second night was to go to the grand opening of this “fantastic” new nightclub with a huge outdoor terrace. The Spanish don’t have dinner until 10pm and don’t go out until midnight so, fighting the urge to sleep, we hit the club around 1am. Nothing could have prepared us for what we encountered.
It was like a medieval ghost-town crossed with a prison. As we walked along the cobbled streets, past a castle that looked suspiciously real, we crossed through a massive courtyard that could have been a prison yard, except there were no armed guards along its walls. The whole time we were looking at each other in bewilderment: “What the hell is going on?” “Where is everybody?” “Is this it?”
We did eventually get to a shitty little club on the other side of the ghost-town. It was empty until our tour group arrived, and a beer cost about 6 euros. After finishing the most over-priced beer I had ever had (until Ibiza that is), we made our break for freedom.
Turns out that it’s a bit of a con that the locals play, targeting hostels and naive tourists looking for a night out clubbing. As we left the club another bus load of tourists arrived – poor suckers. Nicola, Me, and the three others that escaped with us, had a better time catching the bus back to the hostel than we did at the club.
A few Barcelona pics are here (stolen from others as ours are lost )
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