Barcelona Sants is a big, big station. You would expect a big, big station to have a big, big tourist office, or even an open, open one. But it was (surprise surprise) closed for lunch, meriting a trip to the big, big tourist office in the main square (a mere 7 metro stops away). All that we could find in the station were Freddie Mercury impersonators, waiting to sing to us on arrival in the Olympic city. We moved on to one of the biggest squares in Europe, and could not locate the tourist office with the naked eye. So, full of determination, I pulled out my Lonely Planet and used the map with the intention of guiding us to the aforementioned office. Unfortunately, I became temporarily dyslexic. After a good three or four Teddy tantrums in the searing heat, Will grappled the book from my hands only to find out that the office was indeed underground. "I knew that!" I screamed, and off we went to find some reasonably priced accommodation. Big mistake. Having spent a ludicrously long amount of time dealing with the staff in the office, we took a room for which we would only have to exchange one major organ each - mmmmm, bargain! We made our way to the Hotel Coronado in the heart of the cities Asian community, and flung open the curtains to take in the beautiful panoramic view of....a brick wall and the hotel's air conditioning units. We did however have a full sized bath and BBC world on the TV, so all was not lost. Hurrah.
We then went out for a wander. The first thing that struck us was that Barcelona was an exceedingly smelly city, much like Bordeaux but without the extensive dog poo. No, instead it was the stench of Satan. Ok not really, but I thought that it sounded quite dramatic. We decided to amble down to the smelly beach whilst being offered everything under the sun by Barcelona's Asian shopkeepers. Deciding that we had enough fake football shirts, Lada keyrings and singing fish alarm clocks, we carried on virtually unmolested. There followed a couple of beers accompanied by the setting sun down on the beach followed by an epic stone skimming session. We were now quite hungry, and having taken a quick tour of the new waterfront (including the world's most expensive aquarium and an Imax cinema), decided to treat ourselves to some sweet waffles. Young William decided to try his luck with a chocolate and cream covered treat, but quickly found himself in some trouble. With my huge mouth, ravenous appetite and scarily fast eating speed mine was dispatched without too much trouble. Will, however was in need of assistance: with chocolate smeared liberally around his mouth (and spreading ever further into less accessible parts of his face - eyes, ears and hair for example) and hands, the passing tourists quite reasonably assumed that I had taken my retarded brother out for a special treat. A nice old English lady was even heard to mutter "Ooh look, there's that nice Ainsley Harriet, I wonder if he's enjoying that waffle?". Having assisted Will with the cleanup operation we wandered back to the hotel and enjoyed a splendid sleep. Which was nice.
We awoke to more glorious sunshine with a knot in our stomachs: another must win game for the mighty Arsenal in the quest for that elusive 'double': Ipswich at home. Having carried out some extensive Internet research the day before, we discovered that the Michael Collins pub situated just outside the Sagrada Familia would be showing the game. Thank the lord. Our first visit of the day however was to Barcelona's gothic quarter, where we took in the 'bric a brac' (or, loosely translated, "pile of crap sold to dumbass tourists for vastly inflated prices") market in the Placa Reial. Having again managed to resist buying a Skoda keyring or antique pubic lice remover, we made our way to the vast gothic cathedral. We soon decided that it was time for some more sun, and headed out towards Barcelona's vast park. A green rally was taking place at the time and all manner of strange food smells, vile bodily odors and whale noises abounded through the park, as well as a woman who liked to say 'cock' very loudly over the tannoy. We decided that a trip to the zoo was in order, and a pleasant hour and a half was spent wandering beer in hand, looking at the monkeys' bare arsed antics. Splendid.
Deciding that we'd seen enough, and following a Happy Gilmore style lunch at Subway (we hate that Bob Barker), we headed towards the splendid Arc de Triomphe, and later Parc Guell. Gaudi's residence and museum are situated here, and having climbed up the mountain to the park for a good twenty minutes (in scorching heat, I might add), and having seen about two other tourists, we suddenly found ourselves among the throng. I found the sculptures and the decorations on the houses very beautiful, and as a result took far too many pictures.
It was now nearly match time, so we hopped back on the metro to the Sagrada Familia and took our seats amongst the English idiots. Whilst we watched in a small Arsenal enclave (as seems to happen on holiday), a group of English tuffs were busy downing Guinness, supporting Ipswich, and then chundering Guinness into the urinals (to the delight of the landlord, you can imagine). The game itself was nervy and tense, with Will and I having trouble stopping ourselves screaming like Hollywood Montrose. Freddie Ljungberg scored twice, resulting in the Arsenal enclave erupting and crying and stroking nipples, etc. One step closer... However, it was time to return to European culture, so we stepped outside and explored the modern Cathedral that is the Sagrada Familia. Will's first reaction was to shout:
"Oh my! How 80s!", whilst my conservative response was along the lines of:
"I've never seen a bigger piece of shit in my life!" Gaudi had clearly been taking the piss: I forgot to mention our trip earlier in the day to the Picasso museum, which had been fantastic, and far overshadowed this rather strange and dated-looking atrocity. We then went to check the email and returned to the hotel for a well-deserved rest (only after Will had performed a jig in the square to celebrate Arsenal's victory).
To read all about another fun-filled day in another park click here!
Unfortunately when we awoke, we realised that it was time again for that most terrible of tasks: yes, it was time to go to a Spanish train station to obtain tickets for the next leg of our journey. Getting these tickets to Montpellier proved as difficult as ever before, as we waited just under two hours. William's patience was stretched to breaking point when we were queue-barged by an annoying ginger backpacker. William's tantrum was soon over though, as our number was called and finally we obtained the tickets back to France.
Today was the day of the biggest game in European football for 50 years: Barcelona vs Real Madrid. Having heard that tickets were going on the black market for £10,000 we abandoned all hope of actually going to the game, and settled instead for a trip to Barcelona's 100,000 seater stadium, the Camp Nou. Having walked miles in the sweltering heat and feeling extremely sweaty, we managed to book ourselves on to the last tour of the day before the stadium closed to mere mortals. Our charming bilingual tour guide showed us everything: home and away dressing rooms, the black Madonna, we walked on the end of the pitch, sat in the President's seat, and lifted the European Cup. The only disappointing thing was that the world's fattest man was in our tour group, and insisted upon barging his way past us to get to the front. I consoled myself with the thought that he would have collapsed dead of a coronary within 18 months, and obviously hadn't got any for several years. What a fat prick. An artist's impression indicates just how much of a fat prick this man was.
Anyway, I digress. Having wandered around the museum and used up nearly an entire roll of film, we went to the club shop, and both ended up buying Barca shirts, clearly motivated firstly by amazement at the size and history of the club, and secondly by a lack of clean shirts in our bags, we were clearly suckered in by the Barcelona marketing machine.
We decided next to continue our sports-themed day with a visit to the Olympic Village from 1992. Having walked for what seemed like hours up past the royal palace, we finally arrived at the Olympic stadium, where we found a nice grassy area and laid ourselves out to bake in the sun for a bit. After this, we headed back to the hotel to rest up for the big game. By 6ish, the streets were full of people swelling with Catalonian pride (we had earlier passed the buses carrying the swearing hordes of Madrid fans), clad in Barca shirts, making outrageous predictions about the game. We arrived at Michael Collins pub an hour before kick off and found a seat - just. This was lucky, as by kick off, the pub was full to the rafters, and we couldn't have moved if we'd wanted to. The game however, was a big disappointment from the Barca point of view, going down 2-0 (the second goal scored by our very own Steve McManaman). After the pub had cleared we made our way back onto the streets. The town was deserted. Obviously all the Barca fans had disappeared into little holes, leaving the Madrid fans to ridicule us as we walked home. This again demonstrated how fickle Spanish fans are, and made for a rather disappointing end to our time in Spain. We headed back to the hotel to prepare for our trip the next morning to Montpellier.
Having awoken at a more reasonable time than usual (around 8ish), we made our way back to Sants station and said goodbye to Barcelona. The Iberian Peninsula had treated us well.
"Who? Oh him. He's a bit fat."