Barcelona September 2014

I decided to take a short trip to one of the best cities in Spain. Barcelona! 
I flew EasyJet from Gatwick and landed at 2pm. There's a blue airport shuttle outside the terminal which takes you to the centre of the city. It's €6/£4.70/$7.70 and takes about 30 minutes. 
I was staying at St Christopher's Inn Hostel which came to about £20/€25/$32 a night and is in a great location and includes free breakfast, although this was nothing to brag about and is 100% missable. The bus stops at one of the biggest plazas in Barcelona, Placa Catalunya. The hostel is off one of the streets on the plaza.
After I checked into the hostel I met my friend Alison who is currently studying in Barcelona. It was a public holiday in Barcelona that day so several stores and restaurants were closed. We walked up Passieg de Gracia which eventually leads to an area called Gracia. Passeig de Gracia houses several designer shops, restaurants and hotels. We went to a restaurant called Tapa Tapa which served you guessed it, Tapas! We had a combination of chorizo, Bravas, iberico ham, calamari and of course sangria. It was a bit pricey as Gracia is also very touristy but very nice. We walked up and reached Gracia, Barcelona is all about the sides streets so we went down some of those and came across several plazas and beautiful architecture.  
That night was the last night of the Le Merce celebrations and there was a huge firework display later on that night so we bought some wine for the festivities. Before we headed to the celebration we had some dinner at La Roca on Las Ramblas which is a very touristy and busy main street in Barcelona which goes from Placa Catalunya to the port. Filled with markets, hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops. 
After dinner we got changed and headed to Placa d'Espanya for Le Merce. I wasn't sure what to expect apart from a fireworks display. In addition there was about 10 thousand people there. There was a large screen with clips about Catalan history then the fireworks started and were pretty impressive. There was a lot more people than expected and the general atmosphere was very vibrant.  After the fireworks we headed back as I had an early start tomorrow. 

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