This week I
had my winter holiday so we went to Barcelona for a couple of days with my
spouse. Before the trip I wondered what would be the right clothing there. According
to forecasts there would be about 10-15 degree celcius which is something like
our spring temperatures. So I took my spring coat and walking shoes with me. And
for pick pockets I bought a purse which could be wrapped around my belly.
For Catalans
it was still winter so I was almost the only one in spring feeling among the
winter coats and boots. Only some Norwegian tourists shared my way of thinking. I had a cardigan under the coat so I left the
coat open to avoid getting too hot. And
what comes to pick pockets, we didn’t see them, or at least we didn’t them come
near enough.
We climbed
the fortress hill and walked around the gothic city and looked at Gaudi and also
other cathedrals.
And of course we popped in to nice cafes and restaurants for coffee or tapas. For the lunch we chose local places outside the tourist areas. The adventure in such a strategy was we had to guess what our lunch would be – our Spanish skills is limited and most of the Barcelona people think that two languages should be enough to master: Catalan and Spanish.
Our
shopping was quite intensive and even I, being normally so selective, bought a
lot of stuff: some jewelry, a pleated skirt, some blouses and casual shoes, a
wonderful handbag…. The prices were quite reasonable in most of shops.
And for the
last evening in Barcelona we decided to go to Opera. We managed to get tickets
to Tales of Hoffman performance. The performance was mostly excellent, though
there were some troubles in synchronization with singers and orchestra, probably
because of too deep stage. Also Hoffmann himself lacked some spirit when he
tried to be too much “Juan Diego Flores”.
After the opera
we went to our tiny hotel room to pack our things for our way back. The amount
of luggage has increased in some peculiar way but we managed to stuff the
things to our bags. We fell asleep instantly and waked up early to get to
airport and flew back home with our souvenirs and memories of nice days in the
capital of Catalans.
