This blog entry brings to you snippets of my trip with my other half in Spain and France.
We took Emirates due to its competitive pricing and had a stopover in Dubai. With time to kill, I dragged the man to Shake Shack, my favourite fastfood store at the airport. Our burger and sandwich were super tasty and we were thankful for this fastfood stopover. Hopefully Shake Shack comes to Singapore one day!
My awesome view from the window seat, minutes before the plane landed. I was beaming with excitement at this point in time as I was super excited to be on Spanish soil for the first time in my life. I mean, who wouldn't if it was their first?
Our driver in black who drove us safely to our hotel. Even the cab drivers here wear a suit as part of their "uniform". How professional :)
We stayed at Barcelona Princess hotel during the first few days of our honeymoon. It is located in a residential neighbourhood, next to a huge shopping mall and near the beach. It was definitely much quieter than staying in central La Rambla. I chose this hotel not only cause it was within our budget but because there was a SHOPPING MALL next to it.
Our first dinner saw us heading to a restaurant which was next to our hotel. We tried this Spanish restaurant called Canas Y Tapas. We shared a seafood paella that came in a huge pan and gobbled down every bit of it. It being our first day here, we excitedly ordered lots of other tapas which included salami, grilled vegetables and squid. We both agreed that the food here was really fresh. Why can't we get such fresh food in Singapore too?
Canas Y Tapas
Level 3, Diagonal Mar Shopping Mall
Woke up the next morning to this view of Barcelona. I wanted to sleep in more, but the husband drew the curtains and the sunlight started waking me up from my slumber. Ironically as much as I'm the one who usually plans the whole itinerary for our couple trips, I would rather just sleep in and start my day at 1pm. But that wasn't the case for this honeymoon.
After breakfast, the original plan was to take the train to check out the iconic church, La Sagrada Familia. But we changed our plan after hearing about the hop on-and-off bus. We took the bus and had a leisure ride around the city of Barcelona. There are ticket discounts in those tourist booklets if you're thinking of catching this bus. We took this bus to get ourselves to La Sagrada Familia. You can take multiple trips on this bus but do note that it follows a one way loop.
Our sights with lots of blue skies while being seated on the second storey of the bus.
After getting off the bus, we chanced upon this cafe in La Rambla and I instantly fell in love with its decor and food. This place exudes a nice cafe charm with its black and white tiled floors and wooden furniture. I'm not usually a fan of chocolate but I couldn't help dipping my churros in my cup of hot chocolate. I also love how this cafe is so not judgemental. There was a guy eating alone and doing his own thing. While just at another table, there were a group of friends laughing heartily away. I love such atmospheres where one gets to do their own thing and not be judged.
The thing about travelling with my man is that he never seems to fill full. After our first cafe stop, the husband nudged me into another store for him to get his tapas craving satisfied.
This is the La Sagrada Familia. A church that is still under construction even though they have opened their doors to tourists. The architecture is just so amazing and the use of natural light to cast coloured shadows was what took me away. A pity Antoni Gaudi got knocked down by a train before he could finish this project. This place is crazily packed with tourist and you have to book your tickets in advance in summer. We came at around 1pm but were given tickets that only allowed us to go in at 5pm.
La Sagrada Familia
Carrer de Mallorca, 401, 08013 Barcelona
We came to this food market on our second day in Barcelona. It is called Mercado de la Boqueria and is located in La Rambla itself. It sells a mixture of ready cooked and raw food. We had quite a fun time buying up small snacks and eating along the way as we explored this crowded market.
La Boqueria Food Market
91 La Rambla
We had many rounds of tapas during our trip in Barcelona. Tapas means small bites but they come in many different styles. One style sees bite size food being placed on top of a piece of bread. I really enjoyed myself at the above tapas place called Bilbao Berria. The different tapases would be spread out all over the counter, you take what you want and pay according to the number of tapases you took.
Placa Nova, 3, 08002, Barcelona
Another tourist spot which we went to was Park Guell. This is another creation of Antoni Gaudi. Basically, most of the iconic buildings in Barcelona are created by him. This sandy park was filled with sculptures created by Gaudi. We tried to buy tickets at the entrance but the tickets were sold out. Guess we need to be more pro-active and book our tickets in advance the next time :( We were left with walking through parts of the park which did not need an entrance fee. However, we did manage to get into the the Gaudi House Museum which gave us a history of Gaudi's life and Park Guell.
Park Guell, 08024, Barcelona
We spent half a day away from the hustle and bustle of city life and our tour guide drove us up to Montserrat. Montserrat is an area along a multi-peaked rocky range. It's a quiet tranquil getaway and our highlight was just enjoying the peace and serenity of the area.
Seafood is a must in the coastal town of Barcelona and we had our seafood fix on our last night here before departing for Nice. After exploring Montserrat, our tour guide dropped us off along a stretch of seafood restaurants. He recommended La Barca Del Samanca.
La Barca Del Samanca
Moll del Gregal, 17, 08005, Barcelona
The next morning saw us taking a flight into the beautiful coastal town of Nice. We walked around the streets of Nice, ate ice cream, smelled the fresh flowers at the flower market, did quite a bit of shopping and went to the beach. We had a lovely experience in Nice. The people were friendly, the food was good and we didn't get pickpocketed or anything of that sort. When we were back in Singapore, it was quite disheartening to hear that such a lovely place would be the victim of a terrorist attack.
We took a half day trip to Monaco to see the Grand Casino. But after the entrance fee, we were very surprised that it turned out to be a very small casino as compared to the casinos in Singapore. Our bus ride from Nice to the Monaco was the saving grace, as the bus took the coastal route and we were able to enjoy a one hour picturesque view of the mediterranean.
We flew back to Barcelona the following day and stayed a night in Barcelona before catching our return flight back to Singapore. All in we spent a free and easy week in two European cities. We enjoyed the dining and the sights the most. And of course, I do hope to come back to Europe again some day. Hopefully in autumn as that's my favourite season.