Ola! Bienvenidos a Barcelona!
A month plus ago, my bff has decided to joined me on my work trip to Barcelona! I was totally thrilled about it because it's been a very long time since I had a girly trip! Even though I've been to Barcelona a couple of times, but this city is a gem with rich heritage and modern style, there are so much more places that I've never been able to explore in a trip or two.
My bff and I are sights and food tasting traveler, besides going around seeing the must see sights of the city, we like to hunt for great food in town. So our Barcelona trip is basically filled with food and coffees all around the city.
Tapas, a typical Spanish cuisine which consist of a wide variety of cold and hot snacks. You can find tapas almost everywhere in the city from 12pm onwards, and what is coming to Barcelona without trying tapas? We went to one of the very famous tapas restaurant in town - Ciudad Condal.
Ciudad
Condal offers a wide variety of tapas and there are a few that I
personally think it's the best, and it's a must order for me whenever
I'm there.
Grilled asparagus and mushroom. Deep fried baby octopus. There's a few types of octopus dishes, i.e calamari, fried squid etc on the menu, be sure to check with the server to get your correct octopus dish.
Besides Ciudad Condal, the other very famous tapas restaurant is the Catalana, they serve almost similar dishes as Ciudad Condal. If you are going in a big group, reservation is recommended especially during weekends and peak hours, the waiting time can go as long as 1 hour.
Besides heading for tapas, La Boqueria market along La Rambla is a great place for brunch. This is a very small wet market filled with fresh fruit, jamon, seafood and meat; there are some small stalls selling freshly prepared seafood and tapas too.
Besides appreciating Spanish food, we were here to admire the greatest artist/architect of the city - Antoni Gaudi. He's a great artist with distinctive style and the figurehead of Catalan modernism. His greatest work of all has to be the Sagrada Familiar, a modern neo gothic cathedral which is a distinctive piece of art until today.
We went to one of his piece of art - Palau Guell, situated along La Rambla, after metro station Liceu, on the green L3 metro line. It's a mansion built for Antoni Gaudi's friend and fan of his art, Eusebi Guell, an industrial tycoon during the 18th century.
Buildings designed by Gaudi are unique and stands out from the rest, he combined arts with practicality and nature, which finds admirers around the world, especially the architects.
Another piece of work by Gaudi is Park Guell, a piece of land that Eusebi Guell bought during the 18th century for his initial plan of developing mansions for rich. He had Gaudi to help him designed mansion, unfortunately not many appreciate Gaudi's work. Hence, Eusebi Guell gave up the plan and turn the piece of land into a park, which is also one of the UNESCO Heritage sites of Gaudi's art work. Remember to go there early or you will ended up in the queue of getting entry ticket, they just started imposing entry charges from September 2013 onwards.
Park Guell is not in the city centre, best way to get there is by bus or metro. The nearest metro station is Lessep, the green color L3 metro line, and the follow the sign to look for the escalator to travel up hill to the park.
It seems like Barcelona is a city that inspired a lot of artist, Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist too and grew up in Barcelona, then moved to France. We visited the Picasso museum and we went to the cafe that Picasso used to spend most of his time gather his thoughts and ideas during his younger days.
4CATS is the cafe, situated along La Rambla in the El Gothic.
We had a cuppa here, admiring the artistic deco of this cafe, and trying to gather some thoughts and be inspired like Picasso used to. LOL.
Barcelona is a sea port city along the Mediterranean sea, it has some very beautiful beaches that fill with surfers and beach lovers during the summer. Along the beach stands W Hotel, over looking the very beautiful ocean, we went to their cafe and enjoy a cup of coffee with a spectacular view of the beach.
The wind was so strong during winter, i felt like i was being carried by the wind!
Christmas is around the corner and Christmas lighting were all over the streets. Time for some presents hunting!
Last on the list for Spanish cuisine that we have yet to try - Paella! I went online and found some good Paella restaurant around the town and decided to try 7 Portes. We ordered a warm starter - Spinach with pine nuts and raisins catalan style, and the "rich man" paella which consists of lobster, squid, meat and sausages.
Personally i find that all paella has one thing in common - very salty! I've tried paella in some other restaurants and there were all so salty that we could not manage to finish it. Probably it's just me who don't know how to appreciate this dish.
That pretty much summed up where we have been and what we have been doing for our 3 days in Barcelona, it's short but it's fun going around and food hunting. We had enjoy ourselves very much, and now we are looking forward to our next girly trip - Taipei in March!
Til then, take care!
XOXO,
Missy_Celine
A month plus ago, my bff has decided to joined me on my work trip to Barcelona! I was totally thrilled about it because it's been a very long time since I had a girly trip! Even though I've been to Barcelona a couple of times, but this city is a gem with rich heritage and modern style, there are so much more places that I've never been able to explore in a trip or two.
My bff and I are sights and food tasting traveler, besides going around seeing the must see sights of the city, we like to hunt for great food in town. So our Barcelona trip is basically filled with food and coffees all around the city.
Tapas, a typical Spanish cuisine which consist of a wide variety of cold and hot snacks. You can find tapas almost everywhere in the city from 12pm onwards, and what is coming to Barcelona without trying tapas? We went to one of the very famous tapas restaurant in town - Ciudad Condal.
Fried batatas, some potatoes in cubes and with special sauce.
Grilled chilli pepper; for those who really love chilli/pepper, they
said it's very delicious and it's not spicy at all. My tolerance level
for spicy/chilli is really minimum, i find it spicy!
Cod Fish on skewer, so so only. Bamboo clam is fresh and succulent, must order if you are a seafood fan!
Grilled asparagus and mushroom. Deep fried baby octopus. There's a few types of octopus dishes, i.e calamari, fried squid etc on the menu, be sure to check with the server to get your correct octopus dish.
Grilled
prawns on skewer, yummilicious! Veal loin, juicy and tender. Deep fried
camembert coated with crushed almond with berry sauce is a must try!
Finally,
the MUST MUST MUST TRY dish if not you will regret big time - Cabreos
Egg Style. It's fries top with sunny side up mix with special seasoning
and sauce. It looks like a very simple dish but it's heavenly delicious;
I've to order this dish everytime I go there!
Besides Ciudad Condal, the other very famous tapas restaurant is the Catalana, they serve almost similar dishes as Ciudad Condal. If you are going in a big group, reservation is recommended especially during weekends and peak hours, the waiting time can go as long as 1 hour.
Besides heading for tapas, La Boqueria market along La Rambla is a great place for brunch. This is a very small wet market filled with fresh fruit, jamon, seafood and meat; there are some small stalls selling freshly prepared seafood and tapas too.
Look at the egg stall, it's so cute! I could buy eggs here everyday! Next to it, a tapas stall.
We
stumbled upon this small and humble crepe stall, and they sell the best
crepe that we have ever tasted! We ordered a ham and mushroom crepe,
and a Camembert with figue, it's so yummy!
Besides appreciating Spanish food, we were here to admire the greatest artist/architect of the city - Antoni Gaudi. He's a great artist with distinctive style and the figurehead of Catalan modernism. His greatest work of all has to be the Sagrada Familiar, a modern neo gothic cathedral which is a distinctive piece of art until today.
We went to one of his piece of art - Palau Guell, situated along La Rambla, after metro station Liceu, on the green L3 metro line. It's a mansion built for Antoni Gaudi's friend and fan of his art, Eusebi Guell, an industrial tycoon during the 18th century.
Buildings designed by Gaudi are unique and stands out from the rest, he combined arts with practicality and nature, which finds admirers around the world, especially the architects.
Another piece of work by Gaudi is Park Guell, a piece of land that Eusebi Guell bought during the 18th century for his initial plan of developing mansions for rich. He had Gaudi to help him designed mansion, unfortunately not many appreciate Gaudi's work. Hence, Eusebi Guell gave up the plan and turn the piece of land into a park, which is also one of the UNESCO Heritage sites of Gaudi's art work. Remember to go there early or you will ended up in the queue of getting entry ticket, they just started imposing entry charges from September 2013 onwards.
Park Guell is not in the city centre, best way to get there is by bus or metro. The nearest metro station is Lessep, the green color L3 metro line, and the follow the sign to look for the escalator to travel up hill to the park.
It seems like Barcelona is a city that inspired a lot of artist, Pablo Picasso was a Spanish artist too and grew up in Barcelona, then moved to France. We visited the Picasso museum and we went to the cafe that Picasso used to spend most of his time gather his thoughts and ideas during his younger days.
4CATS is the cafe, situated along La Rambla in the El Gothic.
We had a cuppa here, admiring the artistic deco of this cafe, and trying to gather some thoughts and be inspired like Picasso used to. LOL.
Barcelona is a sea port city along the Mediterranean sea, it has some very beautiful beaches that fill with surfers and beach lovers during the summer. Along the beach stands W Hotel, over looking the very beautiful ocean, we went to their cafe and enjoy a cup of coffee with a spectacular view of the beach.
The wind was so strong during winter, i felt like i was being carried by the wind!
Christmas is around the corner and Christmas lighting were all over the streets. Time for some presents hunting!
Last on the list for Spanish cuisine that we have yet to try - Paella! I went online and found some good Paella restaurant around the town and decided to try 7 Portes. We ordered a warm starter - Spinach with pine nuts and raisins catalan style, and the "rich man" paella which consists of lobster, squid, meat and sausages.
Personally i find that all paella has one thing in common - very salty! I've tried paella in some other restaurants and there were all so salty that we could not manage to finish it. Probably it's just me who don't know how to appreciate this dish.
We end our meal with a local dessert crema catalana, which is a cream brulee.
That pretty much summed up where we have been and what we have been doing for our 3 days in Barcelona, it's short but it's fun going around and food hunting. We had enjoy ourselves very much, and now we are looking forward to our next girly trip - Taipei in March!
Til then, take care!
XOXO,
Missy_Celine
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