Tales from Barcelona
Once I returned from my 12-day South Eastern European trip, I intended for the upcoming weekend to be my week off so I could rest myself and prepare material for next week’s classes. It was once I heard that the two girls I went to Ibiza with were planning a trip to Barcelona that I realized that this weekend was going to be anything BUT rest! All I did was swap a few items from my previously packed luggage (I just arrived from Turkey the previous day!) and departed on the gruelling 8-hour bus ride the next morning to a city I’ve heard so much about. Hooray for spur-of-the-moment travel plans!
Stepping off the bus and into the city, I instantly knew that I’d be in for a treat. We arrived in the evening of our first day in Barcelona and entered the night with an ambiance that gripped our attention. A mix of urban surroundings with many traditional elements like small shops, stands and marketplaces could be found prominently, bustling with life.
We stayed at an incredible hostel in the well-known Plaça Reial square called Kabul Backpackers Hostel for a ridiculously low €9 a night. This hostel literally made the stay at Barcelona better than I could have possibly expected. Not only did the hostel serve free breakfast and dinner but organized club nights and held pre-drink games and activities in the common room before going out… and the backpackers here were the best I’d met from any hostel.
Gaining entrance into clubs was far more difficult than I could have expected, though. Bouncers were very picky about the dress code but after trying over and over, I managed to get through with my sneakers and t-shirt. Once inside, I found why it was so hard to get into these clubs — they really were classy! We’re talking full suits and cocktail dresses in the back lounge with a sharply dressed young audience on the dance floor. At one point, a saxophone player jumped on the counter and started playing live to the club music tracks!
The next morning I managed to get myself prepared for an early day walking tour that would explore the nearby landmarks and surrounding history. Most people are aware that Barcelona has a pretty wild history that got the city to where it is today but I didn’t realize just how extensive it was until I went on this walking tour hosted by the company Good Barcelona. The tour guide I had was also Canadian *high five* but more than that, he was an enthusiastic guide who didn’t just dictate facts but told it like a story chock-full with laughs and tragedy. ¡Buen trabajo!
Starting under the Christopher Columbus statue, you begin an excellent walk through the core of Barcelona. From learning about Columbus’ travels, to drug ridden districts, giant tuberculosis cell monuments, and the School of Fine Art that Pablo Picasso himself attended as a child — the tour covered far more material than I could have figured out on my own.
Every street, every building, every corner we passed had some sort of history behind it. In nearly every case when I explore a city, I don’t fret too much over what I missed between as I go from landmark to landmark. But in Barcelona, it feels like every square inch of the city has a story to tell, with as rich a history as the main attractions themselves. One good example is the alleyway leading to the courtyard (now the City History Museum) where the former King and Queen would watch the hanging and burning of Jews. Due to shortage of material during construction, the walls of some of these buildings were made of Jewish tombstones (simply shameful). To avoid bringing attention to this, the engraved side of the tombstones were turned inward to only display the solid stone on the back — but some errors were made where the stone wasn’t flipped before installing and if you look carefully, you can spot the names of victims (in Hebrew) throughout the walls. As terrible as these events were, I appreciated being on a tour like this that made me aware of the horrible things that happened here rather than ignorantly passing them by. Staying informed makes you grateful.
One of the most stunning buildings in Barcelona is the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia. It’s dedicated to the young girl who, according to the story and Catholic tradition, suffered martyrdom through various trials in an effort for the Romans to have her absolve her faith. Trials such as being stripped naked in public, being tossed into a barrel of knifes, covered in a bag of fleas and many others right up to her death proved to be the greatest level of faith the people of Barcelona had ever witnessed and this church was renamed on her behalf.
If that wasn’t enough bad history, fast-forward to 1938 at the height of the Spanish Civil War where under the request of General Franco, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini dropped several bombs aimed at the Catalan people as retribution. At least 1000 people died in this event and damaged the previous church mentioned above and an area that was home to an orphanage (pictured below). The entire center wall of this building was destroyed and you can see the holes and chips in the concrete created by the explosion. Seeing children play soccer in this once desolate place, likely oblivious to its past, was a very surreal experience.
The final stop was back in Plaza Reial where we were told about the very famous Antoni Gaudí and his work with the city. His first project were the lampposts in this square, right outside of the hostel. The government funded this project but were repulsed by his work and discontinued support meaning all his other projects had to be funded by other means. In a way, this paved the road for a very interesting career for Gaudí but we’ll get back to him later.
After eating some traditional burritos and sangria, the day quickly turned dark and it was time to have another night out. Getting into this club was just as hard as the night before and once one of my new Australian hostel buddies, Doc, couldn’t gain entrance, we decided to ditch the club and go on our own adventure. We grabbed a few beers from the convenience store and swapped stories on our walk back, unknowingly creating the beginning to another.
We only had a general idea of where the hostel was and walked for about an hour before asking a guy on the street for directions. The guy looked to have good intentions by pointing us to the street we were looking for before proceeded to ask Doc for a cigarette in return. The man thanked him, gave him a little tap on the waist and started walking off. All of these red lights were going off in my head. I knew Barcelona was the capital of pickpocketing and anything I deemed as even a potential act of petty crime raised my attention. As he walked away, I told Doc to check his pockets to make sure he had everything on him. Did he? “Yes”, he responds tapping his pockets, his face suddenly turning white “…no!”. “GET THAT ******!”, I yell! And the chase was on!
The pickpocketer ran across the street and my Australian friend ran full speed after him. Having way too far of a lead over me, I ended up staying back and watched as these two ran off into the distance. A good 10 to 15 minutes elapsed and I was beginning to consider all the possibilities of what could have happened, but I wasn’t anticipating what I was about to soon discover. Out from the darkness of the alley and into the street walks Doc with his iPhone in his hand held high. “I got him”, he says exasperatingly, “I nearly ran a kilometre after him but I got him. I even got a picture”. He tells me how after running for so long, the pickpocketer ran out of breath and handed over the phone willingly, telling Doc that he’s “very fast”. But before taking the phone and walking back, Doc grabs this guy around the shoulder and takes a picture with both of them in it; in other words, a selfie. He showed me the picture with their heads smiling side-by-side and my jaw dropped. It was one of the most unbelievable stories I’ve ever been apart of and with such an excellent ending, too. I couldn’t make it up even if I tried. We soon found our way back to the hostel and crashed; what a night!
The next morning I headed off for a bike tour that again was with Good Barcelona, since I enjoyed the walking tour so much. The intention with the bike tour is to travel to all the big attractions that are too distant to do by foot, using no public transportation and strictly on bicycles. Only the first two stops had overlap with the walking tour but I love hearing about the history of Catalonia and its people that it didn’t even bother me.
Highlights of the bike tour included the Palace of Catalan Music, known very well for its facades as a symbol of modernist architecture and inside for its concert halls and performances.
Barcelona’s own Arc de Triomf — the place of where the Eiffel Tower was originally supposed to be until the people of Barcelona turned it down. The Arc was built as the main access gate for the Exposición Universal de Barcelona in 1888.
For peace and tranquility, the Parc de la Cuitadella is a fantastic destination, particularly the Cascada fountain.
And remember Gaudí? Not only did he help design many smaller-scale monuments in the city (that fountain included) but I was about to see his most famous work in Barcelona; La Sagrada Familia.
If you’re interested in unique architecture then you’ll love what Gaudí has done to Barcelona. Truly, lots of Barcelona’s designs have shaped the city and given it the personality it has today, but this one takes the cake. Gaudí was a very devoted Catholic and put all of his time and effort into this project during his last 16 years. He worked so hard creating this structure that he moved inside it in order to use every waking moment of his life to execute his plans. During this time, Gaudi kept himself very isolated and really let his appearance and clothes go — few showers, no shaving — you get the drift. It’s because of this devotion that when Gaudi was hit by a tram (ironically something Gaudí went back on his word for and helped the government design after the lamppost incident), his ragged image made no one recognized him when he was shoved aside on the road. There he laid, the most famous man in Barcelona, completely unrecognized and neglected. After hundreds of people had passed by, one taxi driver had sympathy and sent who he thought was a homeless person to a very poor hospital. It wasn’t until his friends found him there the next day that people recognized who he was. Gaudí’s friends insisted on moving him to a better hospital but he firmly asserted that if the people on the street treat each other so heartlessly then he will stay among the poor and die with them. And within 3 days, he did. This was one of Barcelona’s biggest embarrassments. There was a massive ceremony held as the visionary of Barcelona passed away. Gaudí and his influence have exploded since then and his creations are some of the biggest reasons tourists visit; you may not even realize how much work is by him until someone points it out! He is now buried in La Sagrada Familia but the church itself is still not yet complete despite being in progress for over 100 years. We may not see the church complete until at least the year 2030.
The final destination of the bike tour was a stop at the Barcelona beach, just before sunset.
The interesting thing about this beach is that it’s all fake. Fake in the sense that the large stretches of beach were restructured for the 1992 Summer Olympics and in order to get an adequate amount of material to build the beaches, the sand was imported from Egypt and the palms from Hawaii. Regardless, it’s a stunning beach and rated one of the best in the world! The whole group got in on this magnificent shot, after a long but awesome day of biking.
To wrap things up, the last big thing I did was go to the disco club Razzmatazz, which was undoubtedly the biggest club I’ve ever been to. Giant dance floors, multiple stories, giant patios and at least 8 rooms with DJs… this place was gigantic. For anyone who’s a fan of big clubs, this one better be at the top of your list; it’s crazy! And the dress code is casual, so I was saved on this one! Really good night here.
So if you’ve made it to this point in the blog, thank you for reading so much. Given just how much I’ve wrote, I think you can tell that I really, really liked Barcelona. So much so that it single-handedly has beat every city I’ve gone to except London (still debating which one was better!). The history, the architecture, the food, the clubs, the tours and the accommodations were all exceptional. The people I met on this trip were exceptional, too. The only thing that drags Barcelona down is the petty crime. If you didn’t constantly have to check your pockets or walk around fearing you may loose your valuables then I’m sure Barcelona would be a perfect place to travel to. But, hey, if you catch a thief, you may just make your trip in Barcelona that much more memorable. And really, at the end of the day, it’s the stories you can share that make a travel experience brilliant… and Barcelona DEFINITELY delivers on that front.
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This blog entry is part of the publication Robert Cekan Travels & was originally written on November 27, 2012
Robert Cekan is a young entrepreneur and proud Hamiltonian. He is the founder of the Hamilton discovery website True Resident, as well as Cekan Group, a property management group. He is also a Hamilton REALTOR® with Ambitious Realty Advisors Inc., Brokerage and an active blogger.
For all of Robert’s projects, please visit robertcekan.com
