Woke up early on my second day so that I could at least visit Camp Nou at BCN. Got my city map from the hotel receptionist and I started replanning my itinerary again since there were some last minute changes with my tickets. My initial plan was to tour inside the stadium, but since I had visited Santiaga Bernabeu in Madrid I decided not to spend so much on visting football stadiums (sorry, BCN football fans!).
Part 1: Departure
Part 2: Puerta del Sol
Part 3: Of Palace and Parks
Part 4: Solo Trippin' Thoughts
Part 5: Gastronomic Spain
Part 6: Jewels of Toledo
Part 7: Hola Barcelona! (Part I)
Outfit of the day. A lot of walking will be done!
On the way to Camp Nou, I spotted a fruit store which was much to my delight. Got a banana to get my morning started since I hadn't had the time to grab my breakfast.
And a bakery store which I've tried the Ensaimada
1. Camp Nou
Address: C.d'Aristides Maillol, 12, 08028, Barcelona, Spain
You can take the metro from your nearest station to the Collblanc to visit Camp Nou.
Coincidentally, there was a marathon going on when I paid a visit there. I noticed many people were wearing the same jersey making their ways into the same direction.
The marathon was just about to start.
Tourist shot #2
2. Casa Mila
Address: Provenca, 261-265, 08008, Barcelona, Spain
aka La Pedrera (the quarry)
Casa Mila is also another modernist building designed by Antoni Gaudi. The designs are organic, where they were inspired by vines, acorn and other natural textures. The facades are all undulating like waves and the rooftop is simply surrealistic.
Walked along Passeig de Gracia to get to Casa Mila.
Passing by Casa Batllo again
La Pedrera finally!
The patio
The audioguide for Casa Mila
The iron wrought designs inspired by twirling vines
Loving the colourful watermarks-like design on the walls
Tourist shot #3 (at the roof)
Looking down from the roof.
And it's quite amazing to spot Sagrada Familia from the distance
Spiral staircase..
The attic
Elements that Gaudi used as inspirations for his designs.
The furnitures in the apartment are just so rustic and elegant!
3. Catedral de Barcelona
Address: Pla de la Seu, s/n, 08002, Barcelona, Spain
The streets around Barcelona Cathedral is quaint and really beautiful. I'm appealed to the streets over there and have wandered around there to feast my eyes on the beautiful architectures.
Finally at the cathedral. Since it's peak season at BCN around aug-sept, everywhere were swarmed with people.
Inside the cathedral was amazing too. And the camera would fail to catch the feeling of it unfortunately..
The glass-stained window
Sculptures
Street performer
4. Gothic Quarter
This narrow medieval street has many Catalan restaurants, clubs and bars.
5. Picasso Street and Picasso Museum
Food never cease to appeal me
Picasso Museum
Graffiti door
Beautiful alley
6. Sagrada Familia
Sagrada Familia is the world biggest unfinished Roman Catholic church, also designed by Antoni Gaudi. It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site..
That's from the exterior. As yours truly reached a little earlier from my purchased ticket time, I had some time to loiter around the shops nearby.
Bakery again. Well, it's everywhere
A variety of bun, croissants and desserts to choose from.
Torron Vicens store. The nougats were amazing!
Artisan nougat, anyone?
Bought water and some grab and go snacks to replenish some energy. Back to the sacred tower...
Intricate and meticulous designs of the façade. Every part tells a story of the bible...
I really love this cipher thingy, they call it the magic square. There are several specific patterns you can make from the four numbers, having a magic constant of 33, which is the age of Jesus Christ at the crucifixion.
Gotta stare at the ceiling in awe
There are names on the stained glass windows of religious pilgrimage sites
Going up the Nativity tower
If you are scared of height + a little bit of claustrophobic, maybe it wouldn't sound like a good idea to go up the tower. There's no way down from the tower, not even by an escalator. Once you are up there, your only choice would only be descending the narrow corkscrew staircase by your ownself. I had to stop for a while because making my way down makes me so dizzy! There won't be any handrail at the other side of the staircase, so if you glance down you will be able to see a seashell shape from the dwindling spiral pattern. It's the golden ratio, well I guess :P
Terrific view
A lil claustrophobic
It's really narrow!
Golden ratio?
Couldn't take the effect through the camera lens..
7. Tibidabo
To get to the church at Tibidabo, you can get up from the station through a slope. You can walk, if you have ample of time for your travel (I would! But I didn't due to the lack of time). But a more practical way would be going up by a bus/tram. I haven't use a tram before, therefore I decided to give it a ride.
After you arrive at the stop, you will need to take another funicular up to the peak.
Anddd.... finally arriving at the surrealistic land!
This is the tibidabo theme park..
And the oh-so-amazing church!
Tibidabo is the land nearest to the heaven of BCN. You can see the entire BCN here. The wind is strong up here, and the view is absolutelyyy stunning!
Mirablau
8. Placa d'Espanya
Reluctantly, bidded a goodbye to Tibidabo. Since I had a little more time left before I bid farewell to BCN, I decided to drop by Espana Plaza at around 8pm. My plan was to visit the Magic Fountain but decided not to go for it. There were too many people especially foreigners.
The fountain is just right there, in front of the palace! I didn't wait for it though since it only starts at 9.30pm
Espana Plaza is a really beautiful place. There were many restaurants there too. Even the small fountains by the roadside were already beautiful enough! Walked back again to reserve my energy for my return journey.
Truly grateful to have a solo journey here at a land with no common language and not knowing anyone here. It really changes me a lot. In case you have missed out my previous BCN post, you can read back at here.
Another thing on my bucketlist checked! Thank you for the amazing memories, Espanaaa!
Thank you for reading too! If you have anything that you would like to ask, feel free to drop me a message. Hopefully my post have shed some light to those who plan to travel here at Spain or planning to do a solo travel (well, to generally safer places). Stay tuned for more coming up travel post!
Till then,
signing off,
Suuuuuuuuu.
:)
xx