My LOVE for BARCELONA #Spain #Travel

Barcelona is undeniably one of my favourite cities that I've visited - the food, the amazing architecture, the lovely weather, charming and clean streets, chilled out city...

The place as a whole just gives me positive vibes, a place that I would love to live in, a place I feel like I could wake up every morning feeling happy to! :) 

I feel that Barcelona is a really well balanced city - a developed, clean city with phenomenalllll one-of-a-kind cultural architectures, leaving magnificent history lingering the city,  and at the same time it has beautiful beaches and lovely streets to sit back and relax. 

What tops it off is an unforgettable experience that I encountered, and I will let u know soon. 

So.. what do you know about Barcelona?

I would guess the first thing that comes to mind for most of you would be :-

FC Barcelona Football Club... and nothing else lol. (i hope not though :P) 

But if that's pretty much everything you know about Barcelona... haha.. it's okayyy, I'm here to enlighten you on the beauty of this city! 

Well, firstly, it has one of the most bewildering, amazing architectures in the world, crazily unique, unusual and fascinating at the same time! 

I believe I'm not exaggerating, haha. 

If you have never heard of Gaudi, then please, allow me to introduce him today!! 

He is probably one of the most renowned architectures that has ever lived.

Most of Gaudi's work are located in Barcelona, and I believe that played a significant role in creating Barcelona into such remarkable city.

I mean, 8 places/ structures in Barcelona itself are declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and most are by Gaudi. 

He has a very unique, distinctive style, which instils the essence of gothic and Arabic style in his work. 

Alright, enough of my talking, let me show you the places by him that I've visited, then you would understand the uniqueness of his work. 

SAGRADA FAMILIA

Showing you a drawing and the real photograph of this cathedral.

This is definitely a must-not miss spot if you're in Barcelona! 

Sagrada familia is an iconic masterpiece by Gaudi, and as you could see from the above, it is still unfinished, and anticipated to be completed in another 10-13 years. 

Can you imagine, it was commenced since the 1880s, and now still in the midst of completion D: , pretty mind-blowing i reckon.  

To be able to witness this masterpiece in front of my eyes, it was amazing. 
Gaudi had the vision to build this great church, and knew that it would take longer than a lifetime for it to be completed, and hence he planned, leaving the whole project and many important details defined. It is written that he worked on it until his death for the purpose of placing art at the service of the Christian faith. After his death, his followers continued his works, until today with the help of new technologies, anticipated to be completed by the middle of the century. @.@  Fascinating!

Let me first present to you the exterior of this magnificent cathedral that I managed to capture. Honestly, photos didn't do it justice.. and I could just capture bits and pieces of the cathedral because it is massive!


EXTERIOR

Me and my travel buddies :) 

 

Had to have a picture by myself with this masterpiece! 

My wish list is definitely to visit Barcelona again when Sagrada Familia is completed!

INTERIOR

Well, and the interior is another crazy extraordinary design! 

Look at it.. never seen any building built like this before.  The picture below shows the ceiling of the building. Gaudi got the inspiration of this design from nature, as the pillars and branches symbolises trees rising up to the roof. 

Now we understand why it takes forever to build this cathedral! The detailed & comprehensive geometrical forms,  curvaceous elaborations.. my oh my.. it left me speechless. 

I've seen so many cathedrals all over Europe, and they are all pretty darn amazing, but this particularly one just beats them all. 

PARK GUELL

Park Guell is another work by Gaudi, which is a massive garden/park built with his extraordinary architectures. Gaudi really amazes me so much with all his work! 

His designs are just out of this world, so different , so unusual, so distinctive. 

Gaudi is simply one of a kind, no wonder he is named ' God's architect ' . 

Here, let me show you this extraordinary park!

It brings you back to childhood with those cute gingerbread looking houses right? :) 

The main entrance of Park Guell! 

HAHA. yeap, i had to add a gingerbreadman there :P 

And OH YEAH, if you noticed, i looked rounder because truth to be told, i was erm, really chubby at that time. Can't blame me, all the food and #yolo in europe.. hahaa. 

And that's just the main entrance of the park!

Let me bring you to the massive amazing inside of Park Guell.

The picture of the water fountain above is just one of many mosaic art designed by Gaudi :)

I loveee the colonnaded pathways and foodpaths below. 

looks pretty damn unique to me!

Look at the colonnaded pathways, with vaulting forming retaining walls  which curves.. well, I dont even know how to explain the structures and design honestly.. lol. 

I took the picture from the view from on top , from the main terrace of the park. 

Me and my girls taking a picture with the view of Barcelona while strolling the park :)

Beautyyyyyy!

I seriously love the different elements that the entire park brought together!

And it was Summer, so lovely flowers blooming everywhere :)

Well, other than Sagrada Familia and Park Guell, there are many other attractions and World Heritage Sites such as below, the Casa Batlo. Now you could maybe recognise Gaudi's kind of architecture and design, his own differentiated kind of style! 

Okay, enough of buildings now... 

The next thing that makes Barcelona one of my favourite cities is the...

FOOD

Spanish food became one of my favorite cuisines after travelling to Barcelona!

Something about the spices and the taste of the food, that is a mixture of both European and Asian to me, I super like!

I couldn't find a good Paella in KL yet, if any of you know any good spanish restaurants, please let me know!! I'm longing for the Paellas that I've had in Barcelona so bad!!!

If you do not know what a Paella is, it's okay, haha I only got to know what it is when I visited Spain...

Well, it is a Valencian rice dish like the pictures below! 

Since Barcelona is known for really fresh good seafood as well, I had alot of seafood paella, packed with fragrant seafood broth and yummy rice which is alil wet if you could see. Super yummy I loveee it so much!!

What makes it better is that it's actually pretty affordable, i mean..

Look at how huge this pan of Paella is, which can be shared with 2. 

I forgot how much are they ( Sorry!! :/ ) but definitely more affordable than eating in Italy or Paris! 

 


Also, I had the squid ink paella as well, which might look horrifying but it tasted so good!!
Can't find a better squid ink dish anywhere around :(

I tried their other dishes as well, such as chicken and salmon, and they were really tasty too! I really think they have pretty similar tastebuds with us, their dishes are packed with flavour , making spanish food one of my favourite cuisines!

My friends and i also stumbled upon this large public market in Barcelona, called the La Boqueria Market, at the entrance of La Rambla. La Rambla is a famous street in central Barcelona, ranked one of the most significant streets in the world, filled with tourists as well.

Okay, getting back to La Boqueria, it is a super awesome market, selling the freshest fruits, chocolates, poultry, seafood, etc.

Tell you what.. i'll show you a glimpse of it and you'll know what i mean by a magnificent market! hahaa.

And then we stumbled upon this store which serves seafood, and we couldn't help but to give it a try!

Gah! The mussels , and prawns, squids... basically all the seafood were fresh , crunchy, yummy! @.@

I miss Barcelona already :( 

Picture of us girls along the La Rambla street! :)

And random cafes which we stopped by to have coffee breaks :) 

Tried something different, Cappuccino Baileys, and it was good! :D

Alrighty, and finally, what tops Barcelona as my favorite city is my experience in this city itself!

STORY TIMEEEE. hahaaa.

Okay, what happened was my friends & i stopped by at this fast food restaurant to have a quick meal. 

BTW, we had sandwiches at this fast food place called Pans & Co, and it's not bad at all. hahaa.

Look look....

Anyways, back to the story.......

We headed upstairs, was pretty exhausted with all the sightseeing and totally forgotten to be cautious with our surroundings and belongings. If you didn't already know, Barcelona is known for the most notorious , professional pickpockets in Europe, or maybe the world.. so yea, if you were to travel to Barcelona, pls beware of your belongings! 

So what happened was, there was this European guy that came up to me and my girlfriend, Jessica while we were eating our sandwiches.. It was pretty weird that he was trying to show us some postcards, and asked if we wanted them.. Feeling alil confused, Jessica and I just said 'no' and went on with our meal.. 

At that split second, me being paranoid, held on to my camera which was just laying on the table, while rejecting the guy's offer to buy his postcards, and he just walked away.. 

So me and Jess, together with my other friends who weren't sure what just happened, just casually talked about this mysterious man. 

And guess what? Jess instantly realised her phone was missing..!

Shucks.. and all the puzzles solved, we realised that that european man stole it!
Frantically, Jess and us, not knowing what to do, cluelessly ran down to try to catch the man.
While running down the stairs, another man came up to her and asked if she lost her phone and claimed himself as a cop.

@@ ?!??!!

The self proclaimed cop said that they caught the guy and said that he needs her passport and she needs to fill up a form...

Being paranoid, she didn't want to hand in her passport, i mean come on, we were in a foreign country, how if that 'cop' steals her passport and runs away??

The 'cop' was pretty frustrated because we didn't want to cooperate, and I saw with my own eyes, that the 'cop' was actually holding her phone that was stolen!

We were so clueless and confused, didn't know what to do.. and Jess even went on with sighs and said she was willing to let go of her phone, rather than losing her passport, just in case that 'cop' was a culprit, teaming up with the pickpocket!

What happened after was pretty amazing to me! Turned out that police cars actually came, and we saw that the pickpocket was handcuffed and pulled into the police car. 

Wow, i mean it was pretty amazing to experience all that, and we apologised to the cop, knowing that he was really a cop! Pretty unbelievable, asking the cop how did they catch all that scene that happened so swiftly.. and he told us that he was following this mysterious man for 2 hours already! 

I mean, Jessica was hella lucky, and we even followed the cop back to the police station to complete the report of this crime case. It was hell of a once in a life time experience, and all the cops were so friendly and nice, and buff! hahaha. Apparently there are many cops on streets, dressed normally just to catch these pickpockets. I was impressed!!! 

And last but not least, can't leave Barcelona without visiting their beaches! :) 

So i guess that sorta 'summarises' my best Barcelona experience! :) 

Me loves Barcelona!

Till next time!

xx