Falling in love (twice) in Spain - the second time

Before we went to Barcelona, I talked to several people who had been and they absolutely RAVED about how WONDERFUL Barcelona is. I was listening to everyone talk about it and started to get irritated. I mean, how great could one city actually be. I’ve been to quite a few city in my young age – with Chicago, NY, Rejkavik, Copenhagen, and Stockholm being a top the list of my favorite cities. Granted, I still had a lot more to explore, but really, could it be that great?

The short, emphatic answer is YES! It is AWESOME!

With only one day in BCN, we knew we had a big task ahead of us: see as much of Barcelona as we possibly can in one day. On Sunday night, as James was furiously researching Hapimag and real estate in Costa Brava, I got a couple of tourist maps and started plotting our Monday. There was A TON to see and there was not a whole lot that was clustered together. It was supposed to rain so we thought we would do the 100% tourist thing and get on one of those red open-top buses. After 3 days of golf and a few hours of driving, we slept in fairly late – after 9 – but got moving fairly quickly. After a very filling buffet breakfast, we decided we would walk since it wasn't raining too bad – just a light mist.

Segrada Famlia (the back)

First stop – Segrada Familia. What a sight to see. Beautiful, gigantic, such pristine detail. We debated – far too long – whether or not to go inside the church. It was €13.50 EACH. As if that wasn’t a big enough deterrent, the line wrapped half way around the building. I would estimate that it was at least a 2 hour wait to get inside. With so much to see, we opted to wait until the next time we visited to see the inside.

Next stop: La Pedrera. I had never seen a picture of a Gaudi building much less an actual Gaudi building so I had no idea what I was in for. We took somewhat of a detour and James was looking at the map, pointed to a building and said ”that should be it.” I looked up and was completely UNDERwhelmed. I could not figure out why everyone raved about Gaudi so much. This building looked exactly the same as the others. Thoroughly disappointed, we moved on. 

La Pedrera

As we were standing at an intersection, I looked down the road and saw the most breath taking building I’ve seen. It literally made me gasp and scream in excitement – ”look at that building.” That first building we thought was a Gaudi, was, in fact, just a regular old building. We were off by one block. Very clearly, my favorite building is La Pedrera. At €20 per person to go inside and quite the long line (although WAY shorter than Segrada Familia), we opted to visit the inside another time as well. The outside was awesome. The roof looked very promising and exciting.

Casa Batllo

Next stop: Casa Batlló – another Gaudi. We ventured down Pg de Grácia which is a very cool street. When we came upon Casa Batlló, I was very excited to see another breath-taking and astonishing building, but again, at €20 per person to go inside, we opted to continue on our quest to see as much of BCN as we could.

We hit Palau de la Música Catalana, Barri Gotic, the Cathedral, Parc de Ciutadella, Cap de Barcelona, Mall de Boschi, took a cable car to Castell de Montjuic (AMAZING views), the Olympic Stadium, MNAC, Font Magica de Montjuic, Palau Guell (last Gaudi we saw and charged only €12/person to get inside though by this time we had been walking for over 5 hours and our feet were screaming for a rest), and finished by walking up La Rambla (won’t likely return there) and Rambla Catalunya where we had the most wonderful bread with vanilla filling (we hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 9:30 and it was 5:30!!!!!). The walk down Avenue Diagonal back to our hotel seemed like it was never going to end, but alas, we made it back to the hotel. James cracked me up – he literally flopped face first on the bed just to get off his feet. We both had blisters and the aches in our feet and legs were discussed at length. We got off our feet and managed to stay awake long enough to have dinner at a nearby restaurant – Piscabolis – before crashing for the night.

Pictures from the second part of the trip can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151548148199653.1073741827.755859652&type=1&l=6730708756

Thanks very much to Kyle K and his sister-in-law for the wonderful ideas of things to see and do while we were there. We got to everything except a few, but the insider knowledge was great.

I can’t put my finger on exactly what makes this city so amazing. It is a combination of so many things: the history, the architecture, the quaint cafes and restaurants, the outdoor seating, the food, the culture.......it’s all there. It’s beautiful and fun and exciting. I absolutely canont wait until we have another opportunity to visit. Hopefully it is not too far away.

Falling in love (twice) in Spain – the first time

Our planned itinerary was as follows: Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday in Costa Brava. Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday morning in Barcelona.

View from our room

We arrived in BCN late Thursday night and drove the 1 hour and 20 minute drive to Costa Brava arriving at about 1:30 AM. Fortunately, we were able to sleep in because we were exhausted. We had a room with a most beautiful view! It was breathtaking. After filling our bellies at the breakfast buffet, we drove the 30 minutes to PGA at Catalunya. It was a sunny, somewhat warm day and the course was AMAZING. It had the most beautiful views of the Pyrenees, full of hilly lies, and very tight and tough fairways and greens. It was amazing. 

The 13th hole at PGA at Catalunya

Friday night, our friend Ned arrived with one of his friends, Brian. We had a nice dinner and went to bed early(ish) to get a good rest before our round at Emporda Links. The sun was up when we woke up, but by the time we finished breakfast, it was raining BUCKETS. We figured bu the time we got to the course, it would pass. And it did. We teed off at 11:30 and it was a GORGEOUS course. Beautiful views, difficult holes, and great company. We had a blast, until about the 8th hole. The 8th hole was a fairly long par 5 made more difficult bu the HAIL and wind that accompanied us.

It stopped by 9 and then started again on 12. And by the time we teed off on 12, we realized we had a HUGE problem. The hail nor the rain was a problem. The MASSIVE streaks of lightning (and the INSANELY LOUD thunder) made us feel a bit unsafe. Unfortunately, there was no shelter anywhere nearby. We managed to get off the course and walk towards a field where there was a little hut that we all cuddled up against for a good 30 minutes. 

The thunder was so loud I literally thought Spain, and more specifically Emporda Links, was getting bombed (likely by North Korea). When we eventually got back out, we finished #12, teed off on 13, saw the impeding storm coming so tried to rush, finished 13, teed off on 14 and the hail/rain/wind began again. We opted to go in. It was too bad and we didn’t want to get caught out in the open again with no shelter. So we made the 10 minute trek back inside. Cold and soaking wet.

As we were looking outside, we noticed the sun was coming back out and we made the decision  to go back out and play (admittedly, I was frustrated. I don’t like revisiting decisions.) So we got a ride back out to 15. It was a par 3 surrounded by sand and all four of us went in the sand. Wait, let me clarify..........all four of us ended up in water in the sand. We all took relief and then realized we had to carry the water in the sand, get out of the sand, and then carry a good 10 foot wide/long pool of water on the GREEN. This game just got a whole lot harder. My frustration did not subside. Holes 16-18 were three of the best holes on the course. It was at this time that I was happy that we came back out. I also played these holes well and evened out the match that my partner and I were significantly behind in, making these holes all the prettier :-) On 16 green, the thunder started again. By 17 tee, it was raining buckets. By 17 green it stopped raining, the sun came out and there was a most beautiful full rainbow. We made a pit stop at the 19th hole and had the most delicious Patatas Bravas – our new favorite of the tapas.

Saturday night we had a great night out at a seafood restaurant (I got steak). Sunday we were off to play Plata d’Aro. The views and beauty of this course were unprecedented. The course left a bit to be desired – a bit quirky, some blind shots, VERY, VERY tight, and lots of places to lose balls. I played HORRIBLY, but I blame the beauty of the course. I was so distracted. You’ll have to take a look at the pictures, but the pictures just don’t do it justice.

On the 7th-ish hole, we saw a great little community with gorgeous homes, a supermarket, this tiny little town with signs indicating it was called Hapimag. More on that in a minute. We had a wonderful time followed by less delicious Patatas Bravas at the 19th, but still our favorite of the tapas. At this time, we left Ned and Brian and headed back to Barcelona. On the way back to BCN, James asked to borrow my phone. He spent as much of the ride back to BCN as he could researching Hapimag. Turns out it is kind of like an ownership/timeshare type deal. You buy into it, you get a certain number of points that you can use towards weeks of vacations, etc. Over the course of the next day (until he got wind of how wonderful BCN is), he researched, diligently, places to live in and around Costa Brava.  When we arrived in BCN, we hit the executive lounge for tapas and drinks (where the Hapimag research continued). We decided to take a walk (it was very late). Got a bit lost and crashed as soon as we got back to the hotel.

Pictures from part 1 posted here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151545786939653.1073741826.755859652&type=1&l=6f1067480b

Up the next day and you’ll have to read the next post for that. Barcelona is where we fell in love all over again. Twice in 5 days.