Blissful Barcelona - Day Two

We woke early feeling.. strange. No dog on the bed, no children wandering in asking for breakfast. How we used to take those pre-children/dog days for granted!

Beat This Costa & Starbucks!

We hadn't ordered the breakfast buffet the hotel offered but decided to go down and have a look.  I must admit it all looked a little tired and dry.  Earlier the day before Mr.M and I had passed a number of lovely little patisseries so we decided to head out to one of them.  We found a bakery place called Pannus which offered great looking fresh pastries for unbelievable prices.  3 croissants for €1.50 and you could sit in to eat.  Mr.M and I are both pastry lovers so we stuffed ourselves with chocolate and custard croissants with coffee and a fresh leaf tea for me for €7.50

From there we headed straight off into the centre of Barcelona and towards Las Ramblas.  This is a tree lined pedestrian street, it has a lovely atmosphere with plenty of shops, restaurants, and street artists.  We followed the road all the way down towards the Gothic Quarter and headed for Barcelona Cathedral and The History Museum of Barcelona.

I love a museum, it's my idea of a perfect day out but not so for Mr. M.  We paid €7 entry each, collected a translator electronic thingy and off we went, charting our way through Barcelona's Roman history and onwards.  Unfortunately there is only so much museum Mr.M can take and after an hour or so of looking at Roman ruins he was looking thoroughly bored.   We made our way over to the exit and crossed the road over to the Cathedral.

Barcelona Cathedral

Real chickens!

Again not one of Mr.M's favourite pastimes but this was different, they had chickens, live real ones clucking about. Astonishingly I also spotted a man peeing up against a stone column! I was so shocked, he was in a house of God!  After walking past many statues of various Saints we left to continue our walk back up Las Ramblas and found ourselves in a restaurant sharing a paella.

Being suitably stuffed we needed to walk off lunch and caught the metro to Park Güell.  This park is situated at the top of a gruelling hill. The walk up was very steep although we were helped out by a number of escalators on the pavements.  This is a residential area, the people who live there must be extremely fit.  Into the park itself which is one of Gaudi's major works and it is stunning. The views were amazing the architecture is out of this world.  I only felt it was slightly spoilt by the busker singing & dancing (badly) at the top of the monument and the amount of traders all selling scarfs.  I was pleased to find one seller with bottles of water as I definitely needed one after our climb.

We left the park and descended back for a walk towards the metro and back to the hotel for a much needed cup of tea and to prepare ourselves for the night's game.

Kick off was at 9pm so we left the hotel with plenty of time to spare. It was only a few stops on the metro. By the time we arrived at Camp Nou; it was already heaving with people.  We grabbed a bag of chips outside, no football ground is complete without it's burger stalls and team tat stalls outside.  We took photo's then went in search of our seats. 

Unfortunately they weren't quite as good as I'd hoped and we were high up. REALLY high up.  At least we could see the whole pitch.  The game started, Mr.M was happy as he was watching the great Lionel Messi play, alongside Neymar, Gerard Pique and Iniesta.  I was happy to see Fernando Torres, one of my ex Chelsea favourites.   The game was tense and Barcelona won 3-1. Mr.M ecstatic to see both Neymar and Messi join Suarez on the score sheet.

On leaving the ground, I had and probably never will see so many mopeds and scooters in one place.  It was like being at a mod rally in  in 1960's Brighton at night.  Eventually we found the way back to the metro station and arrived back at the hotel around midnight, ready for our 6am alarm call to fly home the next morning.


Overall, we had a fantastic weekend. We packed so much into it and really made the most of it. It was also lovely to have a bit of "us" time without the children. We had a whole weekend without one of having to shout, or be annoyed, just laughing and joking and enjoying each others company. 

I think the mini M's enjoyed their  holiday staying over at the Grandparents too and of course loved the bits of tourist tat we brought back for them alongside their Barcelona shirts!

Blissful Barcelona - Day One

We don't normally "do" Christmas presents for each other.  We work, have a joint account and share everything. We'd rather the money went on the kids.

Except this year was different.  I saved in a secret Christmas Club at work and decided to treat the football obsessed Mr.M to a football match in Barcelona.  I chose Barcelona vs. Athletico Madrid, apparently I chose well.

Having arranged to deposit the kids with the Grandparents for three nights & the puppy at his friends we were ready.

Apparently we were already enjoying our new found childless state too much as we were the last to board the plane, they had issued the last call and were about to close the gates.  On boarding the plane people were sitting in our pre-booked seats,  I kindly mentioned it and they told me people were sitting in their seats. Being already flushed from the dash to the furthest possible gate in Gatwick I didn't feel I could cause a scene and start people jenga so MrM and I quietly sat down in "not our pre-booked seats".

We arrived safely and hit the ground running.  There was so much to fit in.  We couldn't check into the hotel until 2pm, it was currently 9.30am.  I marched us off to the Tourist Information bureau in the airport and promptly parted with €40 for two 3day travelcards and a map. These ultimately saved us a fortune!

I decided our first stop should be La Sagrade Familia, Gaudi's unfinished church.  It's breathtaking, if you can ignore the scaffolding.  We joined the queue (sans suitcase). It was going to be an hour or so. Luckily they have people travelling the queues letting you know you can book on line and come back.  So with the wonder of a smart phone with 4G and an International Booster pack. I booked two tickets for €15 each.  We walked straight round to the front of the queue, had our suitcase scanned and waltzed in.   The inside is beautiful, a blaze of colours yet so peaceful. You can take a seat and reflect or just wander around.  As beautiful as it was, I preferred the outside of the church to the inside and wasn't sure about the mish-mashed style of the decor through the last couple of centuries.

Opposite was a restaurant offering an all you can eat buffet for €11.45 each. Perfect considering we hadn't eaten since 5am.  After this we headed off for our hotel.  This proved to be a little trickier to to find than a great big church and we found our selves walking in circles a fair bit.  Eventually we found it and checked in.  Our room was basic but we only needed a base so after freshening up we decided to head off to the holy grail of Camp Neu.  (Barcelona football stadium to the uninitiated).  The game we were seeing wasn't until the next day but we decided we wanted to make sure we knew where we were going the next day and we wanted to visit the shop before 80,000 fans turned up! 

After needing a small mortgage to buy both kids Barcelona shirts and our nephew his birthday present, Mr M needed to find out the current day's home football scores. We managed to find ourselves an Irish Pub showing the Premiership results.  Boy did I need that beer by then!

After a lovely nap at the hotel, we spoke with the Receptionist for some food recommendations and ventured to a lovely restaurant just over the road. We both love Tapas so spent an age deciding what to eat. The problem with Tapas is you never quite know if you've ordered enough.  We had ordered enough to feed a small army.  It was delicious and  so filling. After stuffing ourselves and drinking with small abandon without having to have one of us as a designated driver, we headed back for a long nights sleep ready for our next days adventures.