Barcelona February 2014

Last week we took a little three night trip to Barcelona to celebrate our six year anniversary and Valentine's Day, i'd been before but only for a flying visit, so was looking forward to relaxing in a  hotel and exploring the city! After arriving at the hotel early evening we were a little groggy from the flight so popped to a little shop next door to stock up on Spanish crisps and sweeties - i was apprehensive about food labelling due to being coeliac, but everything was clearly marked and there was lots of choice for gluten free folk like myself, hooray! We bought a T10 card for the public transport as it's the cheapest, easiest way to travel around the city, so we hopped on the metro into town to find a restaurant for dinner. We stumbled across a little roadside cafe type place and settled there for the evening where we ate lots of meat and salad - yum!

Our hotel was a short 15 minute walk from Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, so on our first full day we strolled over to take a look - it was a bit nuts as one minute your walking down a normal street then this huge, quirky cathedral appears out of nowhere, it's set in a tiny little area, with a small park adjacent to it. We absolutely love this style of architecture so it was a real pleasure being able to have a good look at it, it was super quiet too with mainly locals around so it was nice to be able to have a sit down and take it all in. After this we headed towards the posh shopping district of Barcelona, stopping on the way at aQistoi cafe where we had cofee, fresh apple juice and delicious sarnies! There were more Gaudi buildings here too so we saw Casa Batllo which was very Hansel and Gretel esque, the shapes and colours of the buildings are definitely different, we loved it. As you can imagine the shops were insanely awesome, i had to be restrained in Zara, especially because everything was cheaper than the UK - there was a massive selection of high end shops like Tiffany's, Chanel, Sandro etc. so it's definitely worth a visit if you're feeling flush.

We then caught a metro to Park Guell, it's on a really steep hill but they have escalators for short legged lazy people like me, when you get to the top there's more steep hills and walking but the views are worth it! The multi coloured mosaic tiles look so pretty, and the gardens are full of wildlife. There were entertainers too, singing, playing guitars and a man making huge bubbles! That evening we ate out at a Spanish bar, where more meat was consumed. There was a traditional bakery next to the hotel so we ate there the following morning, before a trip to the Ramblas. Lots of people had warned us of pick pocketers but there were few dodgy characters around and it was fairly quiet so we were free to walk around and explore. We went to the indoor food market which was full of fresh and cooked food where we ate the biggest, juciest strawberries, the chocolate selection was pretty darn good too. The Gothic Quarter is just off the Ramblas and was one of my favourite places, i loved the tiny streets and traditional feel to it - we had some more lovely food at Bootleg Cafe where i ate the freshest guacamole ever, G opted for steak skewers with potato, it was yummy and so cheap at only 11 euro for everything! We walked our food off with a walk down the Ramblas to the harbour where we had a mooch around the expensive boats and grabbed a coffee too.

The final evening was spent at a restaurant opposite the Sagrada Familia, i had parmesan, mushroom and saffron risotto, again it was fab - i like to eat as much as i can whilst on holiday... The Sagrada looked even better lit up at night, it was pretty spooky though! The flight back was turbulent and jumpy, not the best but we made it!

My boyfriend took some amazing photos (i'm absolutely not to be trusted with a proper camera), so i've included some snaps of the trip below - i had to include the last snap of the little bird with the mohican, so cute! I hope you enjoy them :).
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