After a night on a bunk bed on a train in a cabin that resembled something from 5th Element, we agreed that although not an ideal night’s sleep, we were more or less ready to face the day.
The moment the train doors opened we knew that we were no longer in England or France! The humidity and heat at 8.24 were enough to burn holes in tar, and the day would only get hotter.
Once we had checked in to our hostel and bought the overpriced and less beneficial in terms of discounts and offers open top bus tour tickets, (lesson for the future: don’t assume the hostel is partnered with the cheaper aternatives!) we went spent about half an hour on the bus. The sun was so blistering we decided to stay inside, but there it was so hot that the first sign of ice cream had us peeling off the bus in very hot persuit. As it turned out, this was quite good as the area was quite removed from the hub of the tourists and we discovered a café that had an airconditioned upstairs area. It was a most random area, failling, I’m sure, every food health code in the book, but it was good, it was cool and the sangria was refreshing.
After a stint back at the hostel to have a cooling shower and reapplication of sun block we went on the 2.5 hour bus tour around Barcelona.
This city has blown me away! The architecture is phenomenal, the houses each have their own style and character and they are beautiful. And that’s not even the touristy bits, just the every day stuff. We saw some pretty amazing sights, but we’ll revisit them on foot tomorrow, so more about that then!
This evening we stopped by various cafe’s for a serving of tapas each which we shared around the table. -squid, meatballs, bread and sangria, tomato mozzerella salad etc all went down exceedingly well!
Later we went to see a flamenco performance which was stunning! The power and passion they display is astounding and it is well worth the entry fee. That and another glass of sangria turned it in to a perfect evening!