El meu aerolliscador està ple d'anguiles (Barcelona, Spain)

We disembarked from the cruise ship in the morning and caught a cab to our hotel. 

Our hotel was Hotel Regincia Colon. It is listed as a 3 star hotel, but receives 4 star reviews on Expedia.  We picked this hotel as it was reasonably cheap for a room for 3 people when booking on expedia.com. We arrived too early for check in, so we left our bags. It was free to store our bags in their storage closet. All the staff were very friendly and allowed us to stay for a little in the lounge. We then made our way outside and explored the Gothic quarter of Barcelona. The hotel is in the perfect spot in the city, right in Gothic Quarter, very close to La Rambla and on a route of the hop on hop off bus. 

Barcelona is a fairly big city, so we suggest using public transit or spending the extra money on the hop on hop off buses. City Sightseeing has 3 routes that go around the city to ensure you see everything. 

Link to the hop on bus with City SightSeeing: www.city-sightseeing.com/tours/spain/barcelona.htm

Link to the public transit in Barcelona: http://www.tmb.cat/en/home

A cab from this hotel to the airport cost us about €35 - this is a little pricey, but when split between others it is alright. We had to get to the airport for 4am, so we didn't really have another choice. Public transport does go to the airport and is more cost effective. 

Our hotel room.

Barcelona Cathedral

We went inside the Cathedral to check it out. I was surprised they let us in to look around because there was a mass going on. As long as you are respectful they don't mind it appears. Outside there was some sort of gathering where they we holding up Catalan Independence flags. In Barcelona and the region Catalonia they have their own language called Catalan.

We decided to go for walk towards the a Vegan restaurant we had found on Happy Cow called Veggie Garden. There was a lot of stores and shopping on this street. Unfortunately we got lost and couldn't find it. We looked up and down the street and rechecked the address we had but we were lost.

As we continued to walk we passed by a restaurant called Dos Trece advertising vegan brunch. We decided to give looking for Veggie Garden one more go. We just couldn't find it.

We stopped looking and went back to find the brunch place DosTrece. It was cool inside and had a great menu. The server spoke good english so ordering was easy.

Vegan menu

French Toast

Nachos

Tofu scramble

We left Dos Trece and headed back to the hotel so we could check in.

SO MANY TOILETRIES!

We had to turn in the key whenever we left.

We had a break and then went out walking again. We made our way to La Rambla, and found falafel wraps for dinner for €3.80. Then we went to an Irish pub called McCarthy's Bar for a drink, where we were served by an Irishman. We thought he sounded American at first but he said he was from Dublin. He said he was travelling around Spain but he left Seville because it was too hot there and there was no work. We were all very tired from our cruise so we headed to bed earlier than usual.

The next morning we woke early and bought tickets for the hop on hop off bus. It was good value for seeing everything, Barcelona is a huge city. You can see the city using public transport as well but we felt like just doing the tourist bus. The bus has an audio guide and goes to all the landmarks.

Here we are riding around on the tourist bus taking pictures. Most of the sights are of the buildings created by the famous Catalan architect Gaudi.

Christopher Columbus statue pointing the wrong way to America.

This is the Sagrada Familia which is the Cathedral that is synonymous with Barcelona. It is still under construction and has been for the last 133 years or so. This is the vision of the architect Antoni Gaudi.

After the hop on hop off bus we made our way back to the hotel to have a rest. We decided to have a power nap, since our flight the next day left at 6am. When we woke up we made our way to a vegan pub we found on Happy Cow. It had really good ratings. We got a little lost looking for it, but their sign stuck out and we spotted it. It was really hot inside, hotter than outside, so we couldn't stay as long as we would have liked.

hummos starter

Burgers

They had a huge selection of burgers, we all got a different one, they were all amazing. All their food is vegan and all their drinks are vegan as well. They specialise in craft beer and they have a large selection.  There were people playing the guitar and piano in the front of the bar. I got the impression that every is welcome to use the instruments.

Strawberry cheese cake for dessert.

The outside.

Barcelona has a great atmosphere at night. Lots of people everywhere walking around having a blast.

We headed in for the night, as we had to be at the airport by 4am.

W got to the airport at 3:50am, did our check in and got through security very quickly. Then we headed to the board to find our gate, only to see that it was delayed 6 hours.. What? We didn't believe it. but it was true. We spent our time trying to sleep on their uncomfortable chairs. Ryanair gave us 5 euro vouchers for food at 9:30, and again at 10:30. 5 euros in an airport doesn't buy much..

Our view for the next 8 hours.

Finally boarded the plane at 12pm. We took off towards London, England at 12:50pm.

We really had a good time in Barcelona. There is lots of great sights to see and the atmosphere is exciting. We understand why the city is such a tourist destination and we are open to returning there sometime and getting to know Barcelona better.

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this post and want to see more of Spain, check out our post on "Cartagena on Foot"