(Missed yesterday’s post? Take a look at Day Three)
I know I’ve not mentioned it since the very first post, but throughout the trip I’d been trying to avoid a cold. It’s always the way. It started the morning before the flight with a stuffed head, but fortunately it never really went any further. However, one nasty side effect was a terribly sharp and painful pressure headache on the flight in’s decent. As such, I awoke on the morning of the return flight with a certain amount of trepidation. My less than extensive research on the Internet informed me that alleviate the pain induced by the changing of pressure was to chew gum and thus allow the ears to pop. Not entirely convinced that chewing gum would stop me having a stinging headache, I figured it was worth a shot.
But of course, the flight wasn’t until later in the day and I had a morning of attempting to take photos whilst wheeling my suitcase around with me. Check-out was at 12pm, but as I didn’t want to have to go all the way back to the hotel to pick my things up, I had to take everything with me. Luckily I’d only brought one small suitcase, so it wasn’t going to be a huge issue.
At slightly before 9am I trotted off with my baggage in tow after a final coffee at the hotel. For a Travelodge they made a damn fine beverage! My last day in town was to start off with a stroll to Montjuïc, which looked sufficiently close enough to walk to. And you know what? It was! Not 30 minutes later and I was on my way around the hill, which happened to be the location of the 1992 Olympic Games. Remnants still linger, including the Olympic Stadium which is currently undergoing refurbishment to host the 2010 European Athletics Championships. Its stone facade doesn’t look hugely impressive, though the stadium is larger on the inside than on the out as it’s been constructed into the hillside. I got a few pictures of the outside and some of the surrounding area as I continued to climb the hill; a task made all the more difficult with the suitcase clunking away on the surface behind me. The pavements around there seem designed as to deliberately cause the most amount of noise with the wheels of a suitcase as possible!
The hill just kept climbing and climbing, and I along with it. Evidently there was something I didn’t know about waiting for me at the top as I suddenly came across a cablecar station. Put off by the €9 price tag for a ticket, I opted to carry on my trudging upwards. In the end it wasn’t too far and I have to say that unless you’re physically unable to do so, the walk up the hill doesn’t take very long at all and certainly isn’t terrible enough to consider spending €9 to avoid.
Once at the top I did discover something worthwhile. The fortress sitting on Montjuïce wasn’t the greatest piece of architecture I’ve ever seen, but it was a great place to have a custard pastry and a drink of lemonade to quench the thirst, whilst looking out into the sea or gazing across the wide expanse of Barcelona below. By the time I got there I was sweating, and not simply because of the walk. The sun had come out and it was as bright and warm as a British Summer’s day. So obviously everyone else remained wrapped up in their coats and scarves. I, on the other hand, was very gad of the light jacket that I’d decided to bring along with me. A quick change and I felt so much better.
The journey back down was a lot easier as you’d expect, though my case did take on a mind of its own as it frequently overtook me on the steeper sections.
My final port of call was always going to be a proper glimpse of the Mediterranean, as I’d never been to that part of the world before. A short walk, a Metro train and a second short walk later and I was at Port Olympic, down by the expensive yachts and sailing boats; the promenade and the restaurants; and the sun, sea and sand. What a lovely place it was and with weather perfect for an Englishman wanting to get away in the sun, but not the sunburn. Plus, as it’s off-season the place is cheap and empty.
I spent a little while down by the sea, though didn’t venture onto the beach for fear of getting sand into everything I owned. What a perfect way to end my few days away. But if only that’s how you could end all holidays; with that final look out at the sea and you’re suddenly whisked back into real life. But no, you have to fly home. And before you can fly home, you must spend time at the airport. And before you can spend time at the airport you must first get there.
So the journey home officially began, initially with a Metro train to Passeig de Gràcia. Which was fine. Confusion began once there as my sense of direction went haywire once more. Passeig de Gràcia is a large station with many platforms for many different trains going in many different directions. Which shouldn’t really be an issue as you should simply be able to look for where you want to go on a map, head to the right platform and jump on the train. But in Barcelona there are several different operators, each working from different parts of the station, and each seemingly unwilling to provide any meaningful and useful signage to any of the others. So after 20 minutes of wandering onto different platforms I finally established that I needed to leave one part of the station by going through a barrier and purchase a new ticket from a booth manned by a different operator. Yes, Barcelona’s Metro system is clean and efficient if you know where you’re going, but it’s not very tourist-friendly.
Once the train pulled into Barcelona Airport I was in for another surprise. Despite having clearly spent a lot of money on their terminal building (and its own five-lane motorway), they didn’t bother to extend the railway to meet it. So it’s a transfer onto a bus with the worst driver I’ve ever seen. Despite near on 100 people in the back, most of us standing, he tore around those corners like a mad man and almost tipped us over whilst on a roundabout.
Glad to be free and back on my own two feet once the hell ride was over, I headed into the terminal building. And it is very nice, if a little sterile. Self-service check-in and bag drop were a doddle and there was no queue at all going through security. I then did as I was instructed, headed towards gate area D and through passport control. I was all ready to head to a shop and get that chewing gum I needed. Only, if you have the misfortune to be flying from Gates D or E, you don’t get access to the 50 shops and 26 restaurants you can see on the ground floor below. No, you get access to one duty free shop, a cafe and a McDonalds. And let me tell you, even a greasy, vile Maccy D’s seems tempting after tucking into the Caffè di Fiore’s approximation of a sandwich.
Fortunately the duty free shop did have chewing gum, though only in packs of a million. So a million it had to be. They weren’t cheap either – nothing was. Damn that terrible exchange rate! Though I am now stocked up on chewing gum for the rest of my life.
As I sat waiting for my plane I took a look at my pictures from the previous few days. Even though I’d been to these places only two days before, there were still things I’d forgotten. Elements to my trip without which wouldn’t have made it what it was. Although that particular holiday was sadly almost over I still had two more trips to look forward to in the next few weeks – a flight over to New York City with my good chum @Y2Neildotcom and a second trip to Spain a week after that, this time to Madrid.
There was also still plenty more to do in the next few hours. A plane, the Tube and then finally a train before I could call it a day and draw a close to my first proper foreign vacation. The first, I hoped, of many to come.
Most fortunately, the headache didn’t return on the way back. Whether it did have anything to do with the chewing gum will remain a mystery to me, but I think it’s something I’ll do on every flight from now on. Just in case.
I was once more in child-like awe when we took off. The last (and only other) time I’d flown in the dark was on the way back from Ireland. On that occasion it had been cloudy all the way from Dublin to Luton and as such I had really got to see much of the ground below all lit up. You veterans of flight can mock all you like, but for a newbie like me it was another sight to behold. Barcelona below me, lit up and bathed in a warm glow, bade me farewell. And despite the few niggles which I encountered during the trip, it had been a great few days and a return trip at some point in the future is a definite must.
Take a look at the photos on Flickr or in the Photo Gallery. All of the photos can be viewed here – be warned: there are a lot!
This is the second time I’ve tried writing something this morning, but it vanished when I tried publishing it. Hopefully this one will get through.
I’m currently waiting at Luton Airport for my flight to Dublin. As I’ve never flown before I decided to get here early so that if I got mixed up with what I was supposed to do then I’d have plenty of time to get it right.
Well that’s really bitten me in the arse because my flight has been delayed from 6:25 to 9:40. I’m only going for the day, so hopefully the delay won’t increase any more than that! But it does mean I’ve got to hang around for the next five hours and I’m sure the duty-free Dixons can’t really hold my attention for that long!
So I may end up posting or tweeting for a while and hope that my phone still has enough battery when I get there to let me track my journey so that I can still geo-tag my photos!
