Life in Barcelona

Who hasn´t seen the colourful tourist buses passing by in the city centre every day, full of camera-crazy, smiling, nodding people, twisting their necks this way and that, according to the loud speaker instructions?! “Nooooo, that´s not for me! I prefer to explore the city at my own pace” you might say. Well at least that´s what I thought, until one fine day of enlightenment…

When it comes to urban activities I normally try to keep away from everything related to the word “tourist” or “sightseeing”, in search of a more authentic experience, but one day a friend of mine came to Barcelona to visit and she practically forced me to take a tourist ride with her! I must admit that, thanks to my friend’s eagerness for a day of sightseeing, I really enjoyed the journey! 
It is a REALLY good way of getting to know the city of Barcelona! And getting an effortless sun-tan at the same time! You just need to climb onto the top deck of these colourful, shiny buses, where you are exposed to the open skies and sunshine on a 3 hour long tour of the whole city (if you stay on the bus). The smart thing about these buses is that you can jump of and off them, whenever you want to, in all corners of the city, so you can stop at famous landmarks, or you can stop for lunch, or a stint on the beach, or at a museum …and then you can continue your journey until the early evening hours!

The buses pass by about 40 different places of cultural, historical and architectural interest, covering the entire city, from the famous Camp Nou football stadium, to the harbour area and beach. The bus effortlessly reaches all the areas in Barcelona that a professional tourist ever needs to know about and it is a fantastic way to get a first impression of the city or to orientate yourself! You can see Park Guell, the Sagrada Familia, Plaza Espanya, the Olympic port and Plaza Catalunya, all within a couple of hours – without having to take one step! 
While sitting in the beautiful sunshine, watching the urban landscape changing and feeling the breeze on your skin, you can listen to the information about all the different places you pass, in your own language. Well, as long as you speak any of the world´s most common languages!

As you can sit on top of the bus, out under the open sky, then there are no shady windows between you and the opportunity to take some very fine pictures of the city. So don´t forget your camera. Well…hmmm… ok it wasn’t that bad to be a tourist for a day after all!

/Elin
 

This entry was posted on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 4:16 pm and is filed under General Barcelona, Other, Things to do, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.