Barcelona and surroundings
Notes about Spain.
Spain beckons with a warm Mediterranean climate, delicious cuisine, friendly people, European service with low prices. In tourist prospectuses everything looks so great and beautiful that you want to drop everything and go to the sea, to Spain, for a couple of weeks, or a couple of months. The crisis is in the yard, in Spain unemployment is 25%. Travel around small seaside Spanish towns, walk along the old streets, visit the fish market, have a bite to eat in a restaurant at affordable prices.
Dreams Dreams. And now the truth about paradise in crisis.
Attractions. Something that is usually missing from a beach holiday. For some reason, where there is a warm sea and the sun, there is little to see, apart from, of course, some pile of stones in the middle of the desert. Southern Europe certainly wins in this respect. Barcelona is an absolutely stunning city, where a week is not enough to see and visit everything. We stayed there for 4 days. I recommend everyone to take tickets for the tourist bus for 2 days and explore Barcelona first from the second floor of the tourist bus. The ticket price is 32 euros, but it's worth it. In addition to tickets, they give a booklet for discounts for entering various places of interest. And in Barcelona all such places, I emphasize, ALL such places are paid. Moreover, the fee is not symbolic at all, it’s not for you to go to impoverished museums in the CIS. You won't find an entrance ticket cheaper than 10 euros. And many places cost both 20 and 30 euros. If you want Park Gü ell - pay, Gaudi's house in the park - pay again, aquarium - pay again, Spanish village - ticket office to the right of the entrance))) that the cathedral will still be completed. It seems that overcoming the Spanish crisis was shifted onto the shoulders of tourists. In Barcelona, .4 days is very, very close, and this, I note, without museums. Just take a stroll through significant places such as the Gothic Quarter, the Rambla, the aquarium, Mount Muntjuic with fountains at night, Zagrada Familia and Gaudí 's houses. In short, in terms of attractions, Barcelona is one of the most exciting cities in the world. 12 points on a ten-point scale.
Kitchen. When we travel to a new country, the local cuisine is as much an attraction as architectural monuments. Of course, there are extreme people who eat Big Macs at McDonald's in Thailand, but cuisine is always and everywhere part of the local culture. And the taste of local dishes only emphasizes the flavor of the country. We flew to Spain via Vienna, spent almost a day there. We went to a restaurant in the center of Vienna to eat. We had the Wiener Schnitzel with potato salad. A primitive dish, but it is not clear why it is so tasty. In Barcelona on the first day we went to eat paella with seafood. Well, nothing special. Tried later in different places. The most surprising of course is paella mixed - seafood with meat and sausages. To put it mildly, a dubious combination. And the main question: how can a plate of pasta with 3-5 shrimp cost more than 10 euros? Shrimps swim 500 meters from the restaurant. Outside the crisis, unemployment. But a plate of pasta, okay, let it be spaghetti, it doesn’t change the essence, it can’t cost 10 euros. Next, be sure to try the tapas. One of the best tapas bars in Barcelona, we didn't invent it, the locals recommended it to us. They decided not to invent anything, they just asked to bring tapas, which is tastier for the sample. So that's what it is - these are small snacks. They can be anything and a salad and a sandwich and a frying pan with fried octopus. Tasty? Well, how do you say? I didn’t eat enough and again it’s expensive, everything costs 8-15 euros, and the portions are microscopic. Another paradox - we ate the most delicious paella in Barcelona on the waterfront for 9 euros. We thought that we would leave Barcelona somewhere on the coast and there, in a small seaside village, it would be deliciously prepared from the freshest products. Forget it right now. There are no seaside villages in Spain. The entire coastline is urbanized. There are no fishermen, there is an industrial fleet and the Nestle corporation, which makes absolutely tasteless sterile rubbish out of any products, including marine ones. and in the smallest Spanish town and in the metropolis of Barcelona and in Biryulyovo, restaurants cook from the same semi-frozen raw materials. Such is globalization. In short, the restaurants in Spain were not impressed. Okay, expensive, let it be, but it's all stupidly tasteless. Full lantern! If you want to get acquainted with the local cuisine, go to the supermarket, buy jamon, dry-cured sausages, baguette, local cheese and wine. This is not only delicious, it's amazing! You don’t have to go to the market, the feeling that you went to Auchan to cook, the windows are like in a store, refrigerators are not interesting.
Sea. Here we have arrived. I didn't want to swim in Barcelona. We rented a car and again, on the recommendation of the people of Barcelona, we went to the resort. 180 kilometers from Barcelona towards France there is such a town with the unpronounceable name of Calella de Palafrugel. We chose the coastline. There is time, why not look at the coast. It is really more interesting to ride along the sea. In Blanes, I was surprised by the Tez Tour office and, accordingly, by the unprecedented number of Russian-speaking foreign tourists. Believe me, ours are just right out the window of a car at a speed of 50 km / h. That's how colorful we are. You drive into Blanes, the feeling that you are in Alushta. Further down the road is Tossa de Mar. A very beautiful place. Worth staying there for a couple of days. From Tossa to Saint Feliu about 30 km of absolutely amazing road. Believe me, it is difficult to find a more beautiful and twisted serpentine running along the sea. From the route, simply breathtaking views of small bays open up. Unbelievably beautiful. Highly recommend. We arrived at the end point of Calella de Palafrugel. Quiet, calm, no people - we were at the end of September. Two hotels are open, the third closes tomorrow. We walked along the embankment, feeling that the whole city is closed until the new season. Yes, it's kind of boring. One plus - I don’t remember seeing a cleaner beach and sea anywhere. The water is just pure! Well, despite the end of the season, prices are everywhere, so to speak, invigorating: a room of 12 m2 without air conditioning -150 euros, again a banal plate of pasta with shrimp - 13 euros. If you don't like it, walk along the embankment - in the second (it's the last) restaurant the same plate costs 14 euros. There is no fairy tale, everything is calculated and taken into account. Why did you come here, well, rest and do not feel sick. There is no entertainment, who did not understand - no at all !! ! We ate, washed our feet and went to bed. There is no TV either)))) who wants to swim, sunbathe and sleep - you are here, do not hesitate! We fled to Sitges the next day. yes, Sitges is a civilization. The beaches are really sandy, the water is muddy, the waves are big. Lots of surfers and pigeons. Then we just finished reading on the Internet that Sitges is the favorite city of young people of non-traditional orientation. Young people by European standards are those who are under 55. of course in Sitges the evening life is in full swing. Even in the off-season, the pedestrian streets are full, there is where to drink.
General impression. Almost two weeks spent in Spain left an ambivalent impression. I do not want to look like the ultimate truth. These are just notes from a tourist, a personal impression. Before the trip, I read a lot of reviews on the Internet. Unfortunately, a lot of things are written by "experts" without explanation, like "why don't you know what tapas is? ". For whom is a holiday in Spain designed? If you need an active holiday, in terms of sights that will leave memories, then Barcelona and the surrounding area is what you need. Just forget about some exotic. Barcelona and surroundings is Europe, urbanized, industrialized and globalized. At the same time, some things seem completely stupid and annoying. like a parking meter. Walking one morning to the beach, I saw an interesting picture - a German tourist was hysterical in the parking lot near the parking meter, shouting "shize parking meter", which means roughly "devil parking machine". the next day it was cloudy, we were sitting near the beach and I decided to study this shaitan apparatus. In the yard of the age of intuitive control of gadgets, we are in a tourist country, I need to pay for parking. What the fuck is the problem? The parking meter designers seem to live in some other dimension, or they flew in from another galaxy. Imagine, there is NOT A SINGLE word on this fool in any language other than Spanish. Four buttons in four colors - not signed, and a numeric keypad. I am good with technology and I know European languages (there is a gap in Spanish). 20 minutes I solved this puzzle - to no avail. At first I tried to press something meaningfully, then everything. Either a complete ignore, or an unrealistic result of 7.50 euros (I read on the Internet, an hour costs about 3 euros). Now I understand the annoyance of the German foreign tourist. Therefore, a trip by car in Spain is a complete hassle. He gaped somewhere, slowed down to figure it out, after 0.051 seconds a horn came from behind, of course, the hot Spanish cavaliero was late for the bar. Free parking is extremely rare. They don't exist in Barcelona at all. In Sitges, it takes two blocks to find parking at noon on a business day. Everything is busy, everyone is sitting at home, they have a crisis. Let's go to work, they would be happy. Or one more thing. Why is everything closed from 4 pm to 7 pm. What is a siesta? during the day they sleep, then the sleepy ones work for a couple of hours, then the fiesta until 2 am and in the morning, again, sleepy and half-drunk go to work and are surprised that they have a crisis? Tell me, if you had employees who come to work sleepy and half-drunk, and like to sleep for 4 hours during the day, would they work for a long time? And there the whole country is like that)))) And for example, the Germans plow like damned from dawn to dusk. And they don't sleep during the day. In general, the feeling that the Spaniards came to the EU by mistake, or so to speak on a territorial basis. They should leave the tomatoes, run with the bulls through the narrow streets, sleep, hang out and light up in the evening. What about work? Well, let the Germans work, they were born to work.
And jamon and sausages are still a bomb.