If you know Riki, you know he likes flags. There are zillions of flags in Barcelona, mostly one that is inspired by the Cuban and Puerto Rican flags. It is a combination of the Catalan flag, which is just yellow and red stripes, but adds a blue triangle with a star. This flag is the symbol of the separatists, who are trying to get the area of Catalonia independence from Spain. This hasn’t been going so well, and recently a former leader of Catalonia has been accused of money laundering and hiding millions (Euros or dollars – but at that level it doesn’t matter – its a lot) in Swiss bank accounts. This area has a lot of local pride and even have their own language, Catalan, which they speak along with Spanish.
Our first day, we arrived at 9 am from Oviedo (no significant plane trauma to report). We met our AirBNB host to drop off our bags and went exploring. Our little apartment in El Born was in a trendy, up and coming area with lots of little shops and lots of graffiti. It is right near the oldest part of the city and we were able to walk to almost everything, and we did.
The ceiling in our room – quasi Gaudi?
There are a ton of markets in Barcelona, some more touristy than others, but all with the same bustling atmosphere and incredible colors and smells. We went everyday to get dried meat, bread, cheese AND fruit. We’re trying to eat something besides meat, bread and cheese, but they are the best things and can be the cheapest.
They have an old cathedral, which we did not go in.
There’s an incredible amount of graffiti in Barcelona, some of it very good. Most of it not. If you know Riki, you also know he likes taking pictures of graffiti. So expect more to come.
Just down the street from our apartment in the Olympic Park, built for the 1992 Olympics. The Arc de Triomf sits at the end of a great promenade, crowded with people in the evenings.
A note on pictures:
If you know Riki, you know he takes a TON of pictures. We are limited on space for this blog and are trying to downsize the pictures so we can include more in the blog. Hopefully we will have that figured out before Asia, as I imagine there will be even more than the 1500 pictures he took in 8 days in Spain. So check back later.
