Neighborhood walks

I got up early yesterday to check out, and the hostel folks nicely let me keep my bag there for free (places usually charge for left luggage) while I walked around during the day.

Knowing that the only guided tour of the Gran Teatre del Liceu (opera house) was at 10am I headed that way and booked a ticket. It was a nice little tour. Beautiful place, but I was more impressed by El Palau de la Musica Catalana.

I then went to the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter) and did the walking tour from my guidebook. It prefaces the walking tour with - you will get lost - which I did. Many times. It's a little like Venice pathways and tiny streets without the canals. I walked in a few circles several times not on purpose. It got comical, but was a bit frustrating because it took so long to get anywhere because of all of the people out and about.

The first stop of the tour was the Catedral de Barcelona followed by several little plazas and other sights. I was walking by City Hall and noticed that they were having an open house - so I waited in line for a bit to go inside. A beautiful building with lots of impressive artwork. Reminded me that I haven't been into City Hall in San Francisco. I need to do that.

During the walk I hopped into a very cool unique jewelry store. I saw this ring that was calling my name but I couldn't rationalize spending the money on it. I've decided that if I come across that store again (not on purpose) I will buy it. I also hope I come across that damn key from the hostel. Not that I'll get my deposit back now, but I'm still so baffled as to where it went.

After the Barri Gotic walk I went back to the hostel to pick up my bag and check into the next place. All of the hostels were full so I booked a cheap hotel that is listed on hostelworld (the website I've been using to book hostels). The guy at the front desk was a total jerk. We had words. In two different languages but our tones and body language did the talking. Regardless, it was nice to sleep in an individual room and have an adjoining bathroom all to myself for a night.

Next up was the La Ribera and Born neighborhood walk. These two neighborhoods are similar to Barri Gotic but are a bit more fashion boutique centric. Also included in this walk was the Picasso museum and El Palau de la Musica Catalana, so I had already been by some of the streets.

Last item on my list for Saturday was to go check out the Font Magica. It's a light and fountain show that is choreographed to music. The fountain is in front of the Palacio Real. It was fun to sit and watch that. While it had a cheesy-ness factor to it, during some of the songs and fountain moves I got a little emotional. That doesn't happen often! To my dismay all of the songs were American.

I basically had to walk across town to get to the Font Magica. My feet were still barking from that walk so I took the metro back to the area where I'm staying which is right in Barri Gotic. A perk of the hotel for sure. But as opposed to their hostel counterparts - they didn't have wifi (or breakfast). Hence the delay in this blog post.

I then decided to try and go to a typical Catalan food restaurant for dinner. The one that I went to didn't have a vegetarian entree option, so I walked to another spot that was labelled as Mediterranean in my guidebook. Turns out they recently changed it to mostly Thai food. I had a delicious meal. My next big trip might have to be to Thailand. Is it wrong that with an entire summer of travels planned I'm already thinking about my next adventure?

Side note - while I'm overly aware of pickpocket potential, I feel very safe here.