Carnaval Weekend in Barcelona!

As mentioned in my last blog about Pancake Day, last weekend I travelled to Spain!  Along with fellow blogger Nora and our friend Kelsey, we all had a great time travelling and seeing all the sites of Barcelona.  Carnaval weekend is a large festival weekend before Lent, and seems to me to be a much bigger deal in Spain and Italy (called Carnevale there) than it is in England. 

Leaving England, which had been freezing cold last week, I arrived to warm and sunny Barcelona last Friday.  Now, for those of you who have never been, put Barcelona on your must-see list of Europe!  I have been there 3 times now, and I have seen new things each time!  It is right on the Mediterranean, so it has nice mild weather and is very touristy.

There were many highlights of the absolutely gorgeous weather weekend (Friday-Monday) in Barcelona.  First of all, we found out about free tours from our hostel, and got to see the Old Gothic Quarter as well as several of Gaudi’s famous buildings throughout the city.  Both tours were great, and I highly recommend Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia church, which is still not completed!  The last time I had been inside was in 2001, in which there was so much construction and scaffolding.  However, the inside is completely finished now, and it is absolutely stunning!  The outside is really a wonder too! 

Another main attraction which I had never seen before is Park Guell.  Situated high on a hill, the views looking out over Barcelona are incredible, and the park is beautiful as well.  Other parts of Barcelona worth visiting are the beach areas and harbors, Las Ramblas (a main street with street performers, lots of tourists, and an overall energetic vibe), and the Poble Espanyol (Spanish Village), which is like a mini-Epcot for Spain!  We also watched part of the Barcelona marathon, walked all over the city, and I personally got gelato every night from gelaati, gelaati, gelaati (dark chocolate and tiramisu flavors to be exact!).  Barcelona has so many great pastry shops, for those who love sweets as I do!

Basically, there is too much to say about Barcelona to describe in the blog, but I will post some pictures below!  I do recommend it highly as a trip (one of the other Holy Cross kids at Sussex is there right now actually!).  Ok, hope that everyone is having a fabulous weekend wherever in the world you are!

Plaza Real, where we stayed

the boats in the Barcelona harbors

awesome gelato! tiramisu and dark chocolate!

at the beach in Barcelona!

a parade float, evidence of Carnaval!

Sagrada Familia!

on the way up the hill to Park Guell

view of Barcelona from Park Guell

in the Poble Espanyol (Spanish village)!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 14th, 2011 at 1:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Carnaval Weekend in Barcelona!”

1. Kelsey says:

   March 16, 2011 at 12:14 pm

   Awesome pictures – everything was soo fun!!