Day 1, July 23
A beautiful new city to explore
.. Part 3
So, after check in we headed outside to check out the area and were pleasantly surprised that we were right in one of the shopping areas on Rambla de Catalunya.
First we headed towards the shop that we had been told was closest to do some grocery shopping.
It was really only about a two minute walk, but it was tiny and so we headed a bit further on where I had located a Spar grocery store on the internet. We found it after about a 10 minute walk, picked up a few bits and pieces as it too was a pretty small shop before going back towards our apartment. We headed straight on and past it, as we knew that on the other side of our block there was the Casa Batllo, a major sight of the city.
We were one block to high up, so when we walked down to the Casa Batllo, we walked past the largest Nespresso store we had ever seen.
And since there was a Nespresso machine in our apartment, it made sense to head inside. We were promptly greeted and handed a number and then went downstairs. Once our number was up we walked to the counter and Tom ordered two different boxes of coffee capsules, which we paid for and then had another good look around the shop. They had even offered us some coffee, but we both had declined. Coffee in the bag, bag in hand we headed back outside and down the street to the Casa Batllo.
It was a beautiful building, which we only looked at from the outside as there were a lot of people lining up to get inside. And after we had taken quite some photos of the building we headed down the street and along the next road back to our apartment. While we walked towards it, we saw a Starbucks coffee shop and just had to go inside.
We both got a drink, I had my staple a
Caramel Frappuccino, while Tom opted for something that was a special a
Banana Yogurt Frappuccino and we decided on sharing a
chicken salad Focaccia. The Focaccia was heated up while we waited for our drinks and it was the perfect snack in the afternoon.
We sat, chilled and talked about the start of our vacation before we finally walked the few more steps to our apartment building. We headed upstairs, took another walk around the apartment to check it all out, then made some coffee and sat out on the balcony with it.
We unpacked a bit, settled in and chilled. There were now nice chilled drinks in the fridge which we opened and had some chips to go with it, while we enjoyed a little down time. Around 5pm we decided that it was time to head out again and explore the city. So we slowly strolled down the Rambla de Catalunya until we reached the Plaza de Catalunya.
The weather was picture perfect and we took in the area. But we actually wanted to look for a small restaurant I had found online, which was further down La Rambla. So we slowly strolled down the pedestrian area, hand on bag all the time as we had been warned of pickpockets a lot of times. There were a few interesting buildings along the way, in which we had to walk into, one of them a church where we wanted to light a candle, but the only way was to drop a coin into a dropbox and in another box an electric candle was turned on. Something new again.
Then we headed into a huge fruit and vegetable market.
It was great to see all the fruit and veggies all put up perfectly. Once we got back to La Rambla we decided to just skip the main street and walk the streets of the old part of the city.
To be continued ..........