Day 6, Spanish Spree: Oh, the (mass of) Humanity, Part Dos!
Catedral de Santa Eulalia
Yes, that’s a wall with bullet holes in it put there during the Spanish Civil War. Apparently, Spaniards don’t like talking much about this painful part of their history, but the walls with the bullet holes remain, so…
Here are the steps where the man who “discovered” America stood to show off his great find from the New World: the potato.
After the walking tour, we had the rest of the day to ourselves, which meant I could do whatever I wanted, but that requires plans and/or a familiarity with the city that I didn’t have.
So I probably should have bought a ticket to go inside Gaudi’s church, but I didn’t. I forgot or got lazy or something. I wandered around Barcelona with some of my tour mates, which was fun, but I still can’t help think I was missing something. We went into a few stores to shop, but I didn’t buy anything.
I will say that Barcelona is beautiful. Shocking, I know. There are an endless number of side streets you can wander through and never come to an end. There’s always another street.
Yeah, that's me trying to recreate the pose from the statue. The pose was a lot more awkward than I realized.
The coolest thing was seeing one side street completely filled with Bilbao soccer club fans. Athletic Bilbao was playing FC Barcelona in the Copa del Rey championship that night, and the Bilbao fans had come into the city to watch. It was insane. Bilbao is the only team that requires that all its players be from Bilbao.
Anyway, back to the fans. They were chanting and waving flags in their Bilbao jerseys as far as the eye could see. It was sooo cool.
Not cool? All the walking we did today. Walking, walking, walking. My feet started to KILL me. I did have a good time hanging out with my tour mates, but it was a long day after not getting much sleep the night before. At one point, we stumbled into a café. It didn’t look like much from the outside, but it had this cool courtyard in the back. We happily took our seats and ordered sangrias. I’ve never drunk so much sangria in my life, but it’s good stuff.
Almost forgot this story: we’re sitting on the steps of a church (I think) taking a rest. I think we’d stopped for gelato. Anyway, this guy came out of the church and basically just fell down the stairs. It was so hard not bursting into laughter. Poor dude.
Later that evening, we joined up with the rest of the tour group and did a walking tapas tour, where we tried tapas in a different restaurants. We started in the Mercat de la Boqueria where we were supposed to do this scavenger hunt thing. Meh. The whole tapas tour was kinda meh. Again, I was exhausted and the tour was in a different neighborhood than La Rambla, a long street/shopping district in Barcelona where we’d spent the day, so we walked and walked some more. Did I mention my feet were killing me?
After the tapas dinner, I returned to the hotel. Some of my tour mates stayed to watch the soccer match on huge TV screens set up in Catalunya, the city center, with all the Bilbao fans. I was too tired. I watched the game in my hotel bed. In case you were wondering, FC Barcelona won.
Photo of the Day:
The Bilbao fans! There was no other choice. I hope you can see how far back the mass of people extended. Blocks and blocks. I'm so glad I got to see it!
Tomorrow - Day 7: Are you in Ibiza? Cuz I'm in Ibiza!