Barcelona – A bizarre city

It’s funny how the last time I felt excited for traveling again was my last journeys in Europe in my exchange student time. Barcelona and Madrid were my chosen destinations and these two places did not disappoint me for choosing them to close the book of European journey before returning my home country.

My first destination was Barcelona. This city makes a strong impression on me because of its unique architecture and culture of the Catalan region. Barcelona City looks like an artist with a bizarre philosophy that captivates people.

The planning wonder

Barcelona greeted me with a performance by a street singer on a metro, what I had never seen anywhere else in Europe.

Colorful streets or statues with "weird" architecture were what I often encounter in Barcelona. I guess this is due to the strong influence of the design philosophy of Antoni Gaudi, an architect whose "bizarre" masterpieces can not be found anywhere else but attracting people.

Planning of Barcelona is considered as the urban planning wonder in the world. This city is planned with straight and intersecting roads to form a massive chessboard. This is the reason when looking at a road, I did not catch the end, but only see cars intersecting in parallel.

In addition, the pavement of Barcelona is very spacious and are covered with a lot of green.

Sagrada Familia

I read a lot about architect Antoni Gaudi before coming to Barcelona. He is described as an architect with “bizarre” designs, but his works are recognized as a world cultural heritage and represent for the architecture of Barcelona. One of them is the Sagrada Familia, a typical building of Barcelona.

When witnessing the Sagrada Familia with my own eyes, I could feel the oddity of Gaudi's architecture. This is because I have visited a great number of churches in Europe, but I have never seen a church with a strange design like this one. The Sagrada Familia looks like a sandcastle that kids build on the beach or a stalactite structure in a cave.

A special feature is that Sagrada Familia was built by private capital without supporting from the government. Funding will come from visitors' tickets and donations. Due to the limited fund, the construction is quite slow and it has not been finished after more than a hundred years of construction.

Similar to the city's characteristics, the souvenirs in Barcelona are also very colorful.

Parc Guell

I also visited another iconic work of Gaudi, the Parc Guell. I did not go into the crowded center of Parc Guel but climbed to the top of the mountain of this massive park.

It was so tired…

but it's an enjoyable experience. Because only few people decided to climb to the top of the mountain and from this position, I could observe a 360-degree view of the whole city of Barcelona from above.

Spring flowers blooming on the top of the mountain made for a wonderful scene.

A green hill like in the comics.

The beach

An interesting thing about Barcelona is that the city has both mountains and sea, which creates a busy tourism atmosphere. This reminds me of Vung Tau city in my home country.

There were a lot of Frankfurt fans (in white shirts) that day. They gathered and sang in every street of Barcelona to support their home team in the match against Barcelona FC in Camp Nou that evening.

The beach in Barcelona has strong waves. So people often sunbathing on the sand, instead going to the beach.

I saw people often fly the Catalan flag in Barcelona instead of the Spanish one. One thing I learned is that Catalans are very proud of their land and always want to separate from Spain government for years.

La Rambla

La Rambla that day was filled with Frankfurt fans. They are present at all the restaurants here. What an intense love of football!

I often find the walking streets are often lacking in trees, but what I like about La Rambla is the two rows of trees that are spread across this street.

Camp Nou Stadium

As a fan of Barcelona FC, Camp Nou is a must-see place when I visit Barcelona. This is the most spectacular stadium that I have ever visited.

Not the Spanish flag, but the Catalan flag flying alongside the club's flag outside the Camp Nou stadium.

Camp Nou is the only stadium that I have seen with a large cafe/bar located in its area.

Any big club sell tickets for the tour of the stadium and its museum. Stadium tour is usually not cheap (from 20 to 30 euros), higher than visiting famous tourist attractions that I have visited such as Louvre or Versailles. But for loyal fans, visiting the team's stadium is a wish and an honor.

Barcelona's museum displays the club's trophies, from domestic cups like La Liga cups to continental cups like the five Champions League trophies. The Champions League trophy is often considered the most prestigious and is placed in the most solemn places.

Tickets for important finals, shirts of the major players involved in that match, images of club’s coach in each period etc. are kept here.

Thousand of fantastic goals are shown on a large screen, where just touching the small image will bring up a large video of that goal.

Not only club trophies, individual achievements are also displayed at the museum. The Golden Shoe and Ballon d'or by Lionel Messi, a pride of the club, are shown here.

Camp Nou is huge and feels like a "football mecca". I feel overwhelmed when I see this stadium. The slogan "Mes que un club" (More than a club) of Barcelona FC is attractive to me.

Football clubs are brilliant businessmen. Beside the match tickets, they figure out a great number of ways to make money from fans. As shown in the picture is grass taken from the stadium during some important matches and frozen in glass and sold to fans. Very unique and creative! I bought one.

…Or the Lego model of the Camp Nou stadium.

I read in a book that buying a player shirt is the worst investment for a fan as it changes every year and the player on that shirt can be sold to another club. However, selling football shirt is still one of the major money-making businesses for clubs. There are up to three new shirt styles each year and a variety of other shirts such as training shirts, jackets, etc.