Our day began with a flight from Madrid to Barcelona. The flight took about an hour and allowed us to view Barcelona from a great vantage point during our decent to the runway. We were fortunate that we were able to walk from the airport to our hotel; it was about four blocks away. The hotel is called Vincci Hotels. It is a very modern furnished hotel, with very colorful décor and curved shapes. Personally, I prefer this hotel than the one in Madrid (it is newer after all). Although, we later found out that there are two Vincci Hotels located on the Gran Via in Madrid, one is located two doors down from where we stayed. In the end, we may choose to stay at Vincci when we go back to Madrid.

Vincci Hotels - Lobby Area

Vincci Hotels - Typical double occupancy room

Once we put our things in our room, we had a quick bite to eat at an Indian owned Spanish restaurant. After lunch, we headed to the Plaça d’Espanya. After taking a few snapshots of the plaza, we headed the long walkway toward the Museo Nacional D’Art de Catalunya. Talk about stairs! From far away, besides the museum, the stairs seems to easily catch your eyes, hahaha. In fact, at times, you get three choices: steps (apparently for giants), normal grade steps, and an escalator (for the lazies). Yeah, we were lazy…although I felt guilty at one point, and decided to take two sets of stairs…actually, we had no choice. Once you are on the third tier, you can only take steps up to the top, hahaha.

Plaça d'Espanya

Museo Nacional D’Art de Catalunya

We didn’t venture inside, but instead took some wonderful photos of the city from up there. We headed towards the left, and found a nice lookout; it overlooks another side of the city. From there, we could see the La Sagrada Familia, a very famous cathedral started by Gaudí that hasn’t yet been finished. But more on this site later when we have time to visit the site.

La Sagrada Familia off in the distance

Oh, before going on, this was one of our more tiring days, we must have walked over 10 miles (and I am not exaggerating!) So the entire area that comprises the Olympic Stadiums, training grounds, museum, the funicular and much more is called the Parc de Montjuïc. Within the Park, the Olympic area is called the Anella Olímpica – host of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. This was so cool! What immediately catches your eye is the Olympic Tower, a large spire that towers above the entire complex, and city for that matter. When I looked straight up at it, I almost got dizzy because I starred too long at it, oops! Inside the village, there are a few man made waterfall and waterways, some tall columns that light up at night time, a few different monuments, and of course, the Olympic Stadium – El Estadi Olimpic de Montjuïc. Today, it seems that the stadium is used for various events and is also home to what we would consider a B-league, minor league, or sub-league soccer team. The stadium is obviously too small for a modern day, soccer team playing in the primary league – La Liga Española.

The Olympic Tower of Barcelona

Anella Olímpica

Estadi Olimpic de Montjuïc

Within the Estadi Olimpic de Montjuïc

The Olympic Torch - Estadi Olimpic de Montjuïc

After viewing the stadium, we walked around looking for the Funicular de Montjuïc. We found it, but it costs 8,50€ for each ticket – for only about 100 meters. So we opted not to ride it, but instead, decided to go to El Pueblo Espanyol. Here again, we were met with another harsh financial reality. The cost to enter this historic site was about 12€. Now, it was worth it, but we showed up with only two hours left before it would be closing. We decided that we would like to take our time to fully enjoy the small pueblo.

After this last failure (hahaha), we just walked back to the hotel, another 8-10 blocks or so away from the Museo Nacional D’Art de Catalunya, where we first started. Boy did my feet hurt! I now know how to surely break in a pair of shoes – apparently walk to each historic site within the Parc de Montjuïc of Barcelona!!

Filed under: Travel by Giancarlo Deleon