Because the time we had available to spend in Barcelona was extremely limited, the best way for us to see the city was through a private tour. Our tour guide, David, met us at our hotel around 8AM and the boarding time for our cruise was at 3PM. Barcelona proper is only about 40 square miles but the entire metro area is closer to 1,300 square miles (roughly twice the size of Oklahoma City) and so while we knew were only going to scratch the surface, we were able to see more than if we had just ventured out on our own.
The tour David had planned for us had to be slightly modified. After four days of walking non-stop through London, Paris, airports, and train stations… Susan’s knees and my back were already worn out. The truncated version of David’s tour included “only five miles” of walking and we told him we were more interested in the “zero miles” version of the tour. The guy did a great job of changing things on the fly and everybody had a good time. Five stars.
The tour began with a logistical problem. On the day of our visit, Barcelona was having a marathon and because of that, the entire perimeter of the city had been blocked off. After a moment of thought David said, “well, I do know every police officer in Barcelona” — an incredulous concept — but after zooming us around a few back alleys, we ended up at the perimeter where a police officer took one look at us, said, “Hello, David!” and moved a metal barricade to let us pass. I’d love to see the resume and perhaps the rap sheet of a guy who knows every police officer in Barcelona.
Barcelona is filled with amazing architecture and tons of artwork and sculptures. Every building looked like it was hundreds of years old, and many of them were. Every single building had character.
David was excited to see the gates to the “Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc” were open, which allowed us to step inside for a few minutes. You may have seen this stadium in the 1992 Olympics, which took place in Barcelona. During the opening ceremony, the torch was lit by shooting a flaming arrow at the cauldron. In the above picture you can see the torch directly above our heads. If you would like to see it happen, here’s a quick one-minute clip.
Next up for us was a delicious tapas style meal. In Spain, tapas plates are like appetizers. It was explained to us that taking food from other people’s plates there is very rude and so instead they have these meals where every plate is like a small appetizer and you order several for the table, so everyone can try different things. We ordered four or five plates and everything we had was sooo good. We ordered a plate of croquets (croquetas?) that were filled with cheese and meat that were to die for!
One thing that really cracked us up was that at the front of the restaurant they had on display a Route 66 in a glass case. Route 66 is known as “Main Street” in my town.
I told our server that we lived on Route 66 and she almost acted like she didn’t believe us. I pulled up a picture on my phone of me standing in front of the giant Route 66 sign in El Reno (it’s at least 10′ tall) and I thought she was going to do a backflip. Our tour guide later asked me (with a hint of confusion), “I had a group last week from St. Louis and they said they also lived on Route 66!” I had to remind him that Route 66 runs from California to Chicago. A lot of people live on or near Route 66.
Our next stop was the massive Sagrada Família church. Construction on the church, which was designed by Antoni Gaudi, began in the 1880s and continues today.
The church is a World Heritage Site and it’s easy to see why. The inside of the church is breathtaking, with giant stained glass windows spanning every color of the rainbow.
After leaving the church we spent a bit more time driving around Barcelona sightseeing. Again, I know we barely scraped the surface, but I thought Barcelona was wonderful. Like London, it’s a place I would love to visit again and spend more time.
To wrap up the story… our tour guide took us back to our hotel and when we explained to him that we were immediately grabbing our baggage, hailing a taxi, and heading to our cruise ship. David thought about it and then said, “that won’t work.” Because of the marathon perimeter fence I mentioned eaarlier, he said taxis would not be able to come in — but, he would not be allowed to drive to the port. So, after our tour had ended, David helped us load our luggage into his car and he drove us to the nearest taxi stand, where we transferred our luggage over toa cab and zoomed off to our cruise. Gracias, David!
