Barcelona - Day 1

Well Barcelona was just great! Nick and I had a wonderful time (esp holidaying on the pound… if you ever get to try it makes everything appear wonderfully cheap!)
I think I will break the posts up into days as there are so many things I would like to write about and I will also then be able to team them up with a few photo emails too.
Barcelona – Day 1 – La Rambla, Port Vell and Port Olimpic
I’ve learnt now that when flying to Europe from Heathrow its not essential to get there as earlier as if you were flying to Australia – (the idea of that queue that William and I faced a few years ago and then nearly not getting seats still gives me nightmares). This in mind we left Shepherds bush at about 9.15am and got a mini cab to Heathrow (£20, cheap!) and made it to Heathrow in 20 mins. We would usually try and catch the tube to the airport but at 9am we had to be on the phones (and internet) to try and get a ticket to the entire startwars marathon that is being show in Leister Sq… (We missed out… but you can now get them of ebay for £270…wha!)
Ok so I’m getting to the holiday… you all know me blah blah blah… checkin/flight/passport control was all easy and we landed in Barcelona at about 2.30 local time. We caught the train in to town from the airport; about 30 min ride to Sants station and then jumped on the green metro line to Poble Sec to find our apartment. I should say too that the apartment was AMAZING! Just like the photos showed on the site. I’d recommend it for sure if you were ever looking for accommodation in Barcelona. We dumped our stuff and then headed off to find the some food and then the beach.
I really enjoyed walking the streets of Barcelona, the Spanish building are really fascinating. The use of colours (terracotta, oranges, sandstone and yellows) each with there own balconies (most with washing hanging on them made for so many perfect pictures (Mum I tried to get some that you might be able to paint x)
We made our way through the side streets to La Rambla and then along to Rambla De Mar for a tapas lunch with a view of the water… sitting there with our beers in the sunshine we both realised just how much we missed sunshine!
We walked from there along the marina to the L’Aquarium. They had some very sinister sharks in the biggest tank where there was a tube that people could walk thru.
Next stop was the beach where we sat and ate ice creams – wow I miss the beach and I wish it had been hot enough to swim. We walked from here along the beach to Port Olimplic until it started getting dark and then found ourselves a metro stop and returned home by about 9.30pm.
Not bad for an afternoon in Barcelona = )
Wanted to say a HUGH thanks too to all of you that send birthday cards, emails, text messages and presents. I had a great birthday!
More soon – Love C xxx