Archi-tour of Spain: Part 3 | Barcelona

Visited: June 2012

I’ve been fortunate to see quite a bit of this world through my travels, but one city that always eluded me all these years and one that I've been super keen to visit - Barcelona.

Almost every visitor of Barcelona that I have spoken to sings praises of this city. The culture, architecture, food, shopping, weather, shopping, eating, shopping, eating (one can just rotate on shopping and eating) – everything about it seems to enchant its visitors. Little did I know this city was going to completely blow me away!

I’ve already given you all a taste of Barcelona through my Food Safari post, and if you are a foodie, please make it a mission to visit this amazing food capital! To me, the most stunning aspect of Barcelona would have to be its architecture. Whilst Gaudi’s buildings are stamped all over Barcelona, and I do love Gaudi’s incredible mind, imagination and willingness to experiment and push the boundaries in modern architecture, but it is actually the component of its small parts that make Barcelona shine. 

Now onto the photographs so one can see why Barcelona is such a cool place to visit!

Centuries old buildings that are still standing strong!

No building looks the same in Barcelona!

The mansions on Prasseig de Gracia

The Chimney Tops (or we liked to call them 'ice-cream cones') from Palau Guell are incredible works of art. They are imaginative, distinctive, colourful, fun and just plain unusual! Really appreciated and admired the creative efforts of artisans of the time, and of course thank you Gaudi for having such a vivid imagination.

I actually thought another cool feature of Guell Palace was being able to checkout the Barcelonean rooftops, which was such a contrast from the colourful, imaginative chimney tops!

Food Safari Spain

I visited Spain this year from June 2nd - June 9th and had a great time eating my way through Madrid and Barcelona. We didn't research any places to eat during our trip, so everything we ate in this country was something we 'stumbled' into, or only looked into it upon arrival. I have to say Spain is a great country for stumbling into food joints!

I had high expectations for Tapas in Madrid, given it is supposed to be THE CAPITAL for Tapas. I would say we hit some great food joints on some nights with the most mouthwatering offerings, and other nights it was more random, in other words, not the most amazing food. Unfortunately I only took tapas photos of places where there was decent light - most tapas joints we walked into were high on atmosphere and low on light!

Pictorials of the Food tastings in Madrid:

Chocolatería San Ginés - Churros & Chocolate!

Stumbling into food joints in Madrid