Reign in Spain

It is official: I have rediscovered my love for Spain. Vibrant and peaceful, beautiful and rugged, this stunning country has everything to offer both the seasoned (like myself) or rookie traveller.

After spending a wonderful few days in the picturesque city of Bilbao my adventurer’s feet were itching to move on to my next location. Recommendations from fellow travellers on Toowist and various other social networking sites (what a way to communicate – immediate interactions, gone are the days of messages in bottles and carrier pigeons) pointed me in one direction.

I was Barcelona-bound.

Not content with just getting travel advice from Toowist, I discovered I was even able to book my onward travel through the site – incredible! I was told the quickest way to travel to Barcelona – even faster than the train – is to fly. Fly! Can you imagine my reaction? For years I heard stories of people, who attempted to grow, make or craft wings from wood, wax and metal – and now it is a reality.

These sensational inventions are called airplanes and I was beside myself with excitement when I realised I could travel from Bilbao to Barcelona on one.

The journey in the airplane was incredible – I just couldn’t fathom how it worked. I was told by a very helpful young man, who called himself a ‘flight attendant’, that the plane was flown by a pilot who sat right up at the very front in the nose of the aircraft. Sadly I wasn’t allowed to go up there to see the mechanisms for myself but he assured me it was very impressive indeed.

After what seemed like no time at all I was back on terra firma – this time in the beautiful land of Barcelona, Catalonia

I passed through this breath-taking city just once on my previous travels but I was too busy swashbuckling my way past pirates and artful dodgers to really drink it all in. Now I was determined to take my time to explore this vast metropolitan that has become so popular with modern-day adventurers.

Another train journey (I really am becoming quite the dab-hand at this train travelling thing) later and I found myself in the centre of Barcelona. I stepped out of the Barcelona Sants railway station into a buzzing hub of activity.

With my Barcelona guide, courtesy of Toowist, open on my newly purchased iPad (really this modern technology thing is a marvel!) I set about making my way to my first destination – the Sagrada Familia, a church designed by a famous Catalan architect by the name of Antoni Gaudi. I’ve been told it is really something to behold – never completed despite the project starting way back in 1882 and it is now a registered World Heritage Site.

I was transfixed by the gothic beauty of the church. Its countless spires seemed to rise endlessly into the sky and it was hard to see all the way to the top. I had to fight through hundreds of tourists, all greedily snapping photographs from every angle, to make my way inside the church. It was spectacular and like nothing I have ever seen in all my years of travelling. I stood rooted to the spot marvelling at the incredible detail on the ceiling for what seemed like hours before finally moving on.

Inspired by Gaudi, I decided to make my way to Park Güell – the park designed entirely by the man himself. I am told it was inspired by the English Garden City Movement in the early 1900s and that Gaudi actually lived in one of the houses built on the site – but he was not the one who designed it – and it is now known as the Gaudi House Museum. Unfortunately for me it wasn’t open the day I visited the park, however if his works inside the house are anywhere near as impressive as his works outside, I can only imagine how breathtaking they would be.

And if I thought Barcelona was electrifying during the day, I have no words to describe the city at night. It just came alive, with music on every corner, dancers in the city square, people crowding into bars along every street and stalls galore selling everything under the sun (or moon as it was).

My time in Barcelona was certainly an experience – I’ve discovered a love for architecture and am finding myself being more drawn into the history of cities and countries than ever before. When I first started out on my travels I wasn’t so interested in the history of the places I came across – if they had a history I wanted nothing to do with them as I wanted to create history, not fall into someone else’s.

This time however, things are different – there is so much out there for me to learn and discover and I can’t wait for my next adventure.