Spain - Barcelona

Lisa and I had a blast in Barcelona, but we were still recovering a few days later from the late nights. Restaurants don’t get going until 10 or 11pm, bars are open till 3, and then the clubs start. It’s like everything is on a 3 hour delay from what it normally is in the States. But with the warm weather, and everyone else on the same schedule, it somehow doesn’t seem odd.

On our first night we had dinner at a restaurant in Placa Real, which is a major square just around the corner from our fantastic hotel. I would highly recommend Hostal Fernando to anyone travelling to Barcelona. It is in a great location just off Las Ramblas on Calle Ferran, and it is clean, affordable (71 Euros per night), had air conditioning, a twin bed room with our own bathroom, free wireless internet and free breakfast.

We were out till 3am on Saturday night, enjoying affordable wine by the glass (3 Euros for a large glass of Grenache from Rioja) and on Sunday (after breakfast and internet admin) we headed straight for the beach where we chatted with other tourists, enjoyed lunch at a sandside café, and soaked up the sun.

Day 1 at the beach in Barcelona

On our way back, we befriended an American tourist travelling by himself, and he joined us for a drink and later on, dinner. Sunday night was a bigger night than expected when we joined up with a UK “stag do” (aka bachelor party) and got dragged (ok, wilfully) to Port Olympic and then back to Placa Catalunya to go to a club. We didn’t go to bed till 5am, and we had to be up by 8am for our flight to Mallorca. Totally worth it, but very exhausting!

A few of our new friends

Monday was the day of tiredness. We dozed on the bus to the airport, we both completely crashed asleep on the short 50 minute flight to Palma, Mallorca, and even though we rallied ourselves to walk around the cute historical district in Palma and I went to a yoga class while Lisa took a work conference call, we were completely crashed out from 11pm till nearly 11am the next day.