DAY 72 & 73 – BERN AND BARCELONA 28/02 - 01/03/2009
We left Interlaken for Bern, which was the easy part of a very long day. We had to meet the bus for Barcelona in a carpark to the side of the main train station in Bern. Unfortunately, the time the bus was scheduled came and went, and after an hour we were packing up to go to the station to book a ticket on a train. Luckily for us we hadn't quite left when the bus rolled in, over sixty minutes late. We had already contacted Alsa + Eggmann (the bus company) previously and attempted to buy tickets, but for some reason it was not possible on the net or over the phone so they said we could buy it from the office in Geneva. When we arrived in Geneva, a lady with a clipboard demanded over 300 Swiss francs in cash from us, which we obviously didn't have. We finally convinced her to let us use our Visa card in the office itself, and although she ripped us off a little with some 'surcharges', we finally got our tickets. The rest of the long overnight ride was pretty uncomfortable, getting patches of sleep, and after seventeen hours on the bus we finally arrived in Barcelona. One more complication to our already complicated journey – the address for the Barcelona terminus on the website was wrong and the directions we had researched where completely invalid. Our walk to our hostel was about 5km – pretty manageable after all the walking we've done in the last few months. Our hostel didn't open until 8am (it was now around 6am) so we napped on a park bench until we could get in. From there our day quickly improved.
We explored Barcelona a little bit during the day. There was a marathon on that apparently had 9200 participants in all shapes and sizes. It was a pretty big event snaking its way through the city. We think it was also related to the colourful parade that we saw along the waterfront – it seems that February/March is the carnival time for a lot of European cities. The parade seemed to be in benefit of some kind of children's charity with many parent-and-child groups dressed up as pirates, ancient Greeks, air hostesses, witches, Disney characters, drum groups, etc. It was pretty impressive. We also checked out the markets along a rather unimpressive La Rambla (the main avenue in Barcelona), wandered the cool waterfront, and saw a number of landmarks like the Spanish version of the Arc de Triomphe and the church of Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's famous uncompleted creation.
Tired from all our walking, we finished up early and are heading to bed, ready for another big day tomorrow.
DAY 74 – BARCELONA 02/03/2009
The main aim of today was another of our now-favourite free walking tours, this one not actually run by New Europe, but nonetheless we wanted to see some of the city and meet some new people. Initially, we cut the meeting time a little fine, but did make it (since when do the tours leave on time anyway?) and spent a couple of hours wandering the Gothic quarter of Barcelona. Although much more informal than the tours we're accustomed to, it was quite good to see a few places in the city. For example, we saw the building where Picasso learnt (his father was a teacher there and quickly realised his talent). There is another street that is dedicated to Saint Eulalia, a thirteen-year-old girl who spoke out against mistreatment of Christians in ancient Barcelona and was punished in several terrible ways, such as being rolled down a hill in a barrel full of sharp objects. She miraculously survived all these punishments until her head was finally chopped off, or so the story goes. The other major saint that seemed to appear regularly is St Jordi, or St George as we knew him. The dragon that he fought was apparently not far from Barcelona. We also saw a Placa (square) that was dedicated to George Orwell, who fought for Barcelona against King Franco and penned a book here. Unfortunately, it is now the centre of Barcelona's drug trade.
The main cathedral in the old quarter was also pretty interesting, and there were a few buskers playing some amazing music. We dropped into a palace (now a ministerial house or something) and saw an amazing ceiling carved from a single piece of wood brought back from Christopher Columbus' voyages. Interestingly, and unsurprisingly for anyone who has been to Melbourne Uni, the centre for architecture opposite the cathedral is perhaps the ugliest building in the city, but it does have an interesting mural by Picasso on the outside, although it is Picasso imitating the work of his friend. It was drawn in a pub when the two were criticising each other's work. We also learnt about the history of tapas and paella, two traditional Spanish dishes. Tapas was invented because the government was concerned it's citizens were drinking too much on lunch break, so created a law that said all alcohol sold must have food with it. A bar in the south of Spain created what we now know as tapas, small 'titbits' of food (pretty much anything) on plates that could double as a lid for the drinks to prevent flies getting in. Paella is a rice-based dish that is again, pretty much anything with a romantic story about a boy who invited a girl over to his house for dinner but discovered he had nothing but rice and leftovers and a little saffron herb in his cupboard. It was such a hit with the girl that word quickly spread and now we have it.
After the tour we went to the huge market off La Rambla, the main pedestrian street running north-south through Barcelona. The market had a mind-boggling array of meat, cheese, seafood, fruit and vegetables on offer. I bought a plate of assorted fruit, including a couple of really 'out-there' things like a weird fruit with pink skin and white flesh with tiny black seeds. It was really good to have fruit again though, as it's pretty difficult to get a good variety on a backpacker budget and then carry them around with you. We picked up some really cheap eggs and meat so we made hamburgers for tea – it was delicious; just what we needed after a rather disappointing experiment with packet mix sauce last night.
Tomorrow we are heading up one of the hills overlooking Barcelona, then we have two overnight buses in a row to get to Bilbao/San Sebastian and then Paris.
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