Tuesday 5th July
I woke early in Seville. Like, 06:30 early. My body clock was still adjusting (an excuse if I’ve ever heard one…) so it actually felt like 05:30. But that’s beside the point, I was up early to catch the train! Exciting!
It was a dormitory, stuffed full of eight people and as such, I needed to be sneaky and quiet to not wake anyone up. I had, naturally, prepared everything the night before so it was just going through the motions really. After exiting the room, packed and showered, I headed downstairs to the lobby of the hostel. But alas, breakfast was being served at 08:00 and it was only 07:30 and I had a train to catch. There would be food at the station, surely?
Walking to the station, I saw the side of Seville which we had missed – all the business men were up at this time, making their weary way to work. It was cool and silent as well, with only a handful of people running for exercise (or from the police), causing the only frantic motions around.
Seville station is a big concrete block, chiselled out on the inside to create a large cavern and then laid with faux marble and faux gold to give it an uplifting feel to it. I did indeed find breakfast (2 overpriced croissants) and soon, I was boarding the train. I mean, boarding a train is no big deal in the UK, but in Spain there was just as much security as an airport! Metal detectors, X-Ray machines, violent looking policemen… A little dramatic in my mind. The train itself also looked aggressive, an elongated spearhead designed to cut through the air. High speed train indeed.

I sat down in my carriage and my companions for the journey filtered in too. A quiet lady who kept texting her companion at the other end of the carriage, a couple who slept the entire way, two old grandmother’s (I assume) and a single mum with a hyperactive kid. I was not gonna be getting much conversation then, so I turned to reading.
I’m actually really impressed with the Spanish trains. They were clean, efficient and everything worked, including the air con and TVs. They had King Richard playing! Although Will Smith wasn’t, uh, slapping anyone there.
After 5hr 30min, we finally arrived in Barcelona-Sants. The views outside of the train window were dusty yellow fields and hazy mountains for the entire way. Some of the towns we passed through also looked on the verge of collapsing, dilapidated, decrepit and dishevelled. Not painting the best picture am I? Sorry.
Upon alighting the train (honestly I know the word “alighting” from UK trains: “When you alight the train…”) and stepped out into Barcelona, a wall of sound and heat hit me. Cars honking, people shouting, music booming, planes roaring overhead… My poor ears! But that’s OK because I got moving and walked to my hostel, navigating my way through a new city. I adore arriving in new places. Like the slight thrill, the new sights, the uncertainty of possibility, I love it so much. Barcelona was so much bigger than Seville, it didn’t have the same small town, provincial capital that Seville had.


My hostel was fine. I was greeted by the front desk and shown my room. After looking my bag away, I headed out straight away. I actually wanted to book my ticket to Marseille first before anything else, just to make sure I had the seat reservation. So, maybe a bit inefficiently, I headed back to the station and stood around, waiting to talk to the help desk (I couldn’t work the machines, the useless tech guy I am).
After collecting my ticket, I went exploring. Barcelona is so great, a new sight at every turn. I strolled through the city, just observing the place, going randomly in every direction, nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there. These are some of the sights I observed and noted down:
- A man, riding a knackered yellow bike down a main street, no handlebars, rolling a cigarette.
- Couples playing competitive ping pong in the park.
- Bin lorries navigated cramped streets, the driver with his torso out the window, missing a car by a slender centimetre.
- Motorbikes tearing through the city, racing each other off the line.
And many more sights of course. The parks with their flowers blooming, the football fans in their T-shirts, kids roaming the streets and culture and history everywhere you look. And food everywhere too.


Which got me hungry. So I pulled up Google Maps (my new best friend) and went and found the route home which took me by a Carrefour. Time to be cheap!
I ate my dinner in the hostel and chatted to some of the people there. There was an Australian who was staying one night before going to Pamplona to see the bulls and the happiest smiliest German guy (Jan, I think) from Ibiza who was having an operation the next day. Apparently the hospitals in Ibiza aren’t to be trusted like the ones in Barcelona. There was also a Spanish mother and daughter who were going out together, hitting the clubs. Fun times. Naturally, I went to sleep instead. Travelling can be tiring!
Wednesday 6th July
I awoke, not very well rested. There were six of us in the dorm, four other guys and all of them snored loudly. My goodness, it was just so loud at points! I had breakfast at the hostel and spoke with Jan over croissants and coffee. Turns out, he is a language professor in Ibiza which is very cool.
I left the hostel soon after, wishing Jan good luck for his operation. Time to explore. It was threatening to rain according to the weather forecast and indeed, the sky was heavy with clouds of concrete grey. I discarded my After Sun and Suncream from my day bag, and packed my rain jacket. You know, just in case.
I walked down, past the train station into the centre of town to the Venetian Towers which led up to the Palau Nacional de Montjuïc. This magnificent building now was an art gallery and since there was a Turner exhibition on and the rain was starting, I ran inside to have a nosey around.


I like Turner. His art is all so dramatic and all based around light and dark. Plus, it’s nice to look at compared to some of the newer or older stuff. So I had a nice look around that exhibition before grabbing some coffee in the giant atrium. Coffee is really growing on me, it’s so much nicer here than back in the UK…
The rain had stopped so I got into the cable car and rode to the summit and to Castell Montjuïc. There were amazing views of Barcelona on the way up, all the way out to Sagrada Familia which rose like a large artichoke out of the midst of Barcelona. Yeah, artichoke. Barcelona struck me as quite untidy and divided into different sections; old town, business sector, industrial etc., unlike Sevilla at all.



The castle was interesting. It was built in the 17th century and kept getting expanded as more and more wars broke out in Spain and Europe. It was quite a squat looking building hugging the top of the mountain but maintaining a view across the Mediterranean and the entire of Barcelona.
I’d packed some lunch so I chowed down on some bagels whilst reading, overlooking the Mediterranean. Fun times. I then left Montjuïc, riding the cable car down again. There was an American family I shared the cable car with on the way down. They were from Boston and were just having a small holiday. They seemed disappointed when I told them I wasn’t seeing the Tour de France whilst I was in France!

I decided to then walk around the touristy section of town. There are so many shops which just sell the same thing! Like, shirts and trinkets and hats… What makes one of these tourist shops different from the others?? Around Barcelona, there also seemed to be a provision for homeless people where they could collect junk and take it somewhere for it to be processed. I just saw a lot of homeless looking people pushing around shopping trolleys piled high with junk collected from around town…

I also visited the most amazing book shop, Altaïr, which only sold travel and photography books. I browsed for a long time there. I was so tempted to buy something, but I only have one bag! So naturally I had to say “No, bad Al, no buying books!”
I went to Turó park on the way home as the sun was yawning and heading to bed, the early evening light casting long shadows from the trees. It was a park out of the way so there were only mothers with their kids and people jogging past as I wander through. I got back to the hostel that evening and made myself some dinner before heading to sleep.
Thursday 7th July
Another day, another hostel breakfast. I left the hostel but turned back quickly since I had forgotten Juanca. Can’t do that now, wouldn’t be friendly.
I made my way through town after that false start, winding through back streets and heading towards Catedral de Barcelona. A hot day with the sun beating down. Honestly, MVP is SPF 50 suncream. I think I had high expectations after the cathedral in Sevilla (third largest Gothic cathedral), but this one wasn’t quite as impressive. The bell tower was being fixed and it had a large Samsung advert on the scaffolding. I wonder how much that would have been. Does that also mean God is being sponsored by Samsung now?


I toured the cathedral and then sat outside in the plaza, in the shade. There were kids running around chasing after bubbles released by one of those bubble men. There was also a street artist sketching a couple. People watching is so fun.

The next touristy thing was a Picasso Museum. Picasso is meant to be a big deal, right? It was worth a look at least. But after witnessing the exhibition, all I can say is that there is some art I don’t understand, even with all the descriptions. He had so many different styles of art! A lot of them seemed to be juvenile and erotic. And then there were ones which were more disturbing than anything else, or failing that, just plain confusing. But I guess that there were feelings evoked by these paintings. Isn’t that the point of art? I love art, I just wish I could understand it better.

I left the museum and went for a walk to Ciutadella Park. I also did a spot of reading before heading to Sagrada Familia. It was €26 to get inside! I’m not so sure about you, but I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic to pay that much to get inside! As such, I only saw it from the outside. As ever, I look at Sagrada Familia and I’m just not convinced that I like it. I understand that Gaudi designed it and that it was genius for many, many reasons. But it just seemed a little over-the-top for a cathedral.


After reading about Sagrada Familia from the outside, I then headed back to the hostel to eat some food and recover. On the way back, I ended up laughing in the middle of the street since I had just seen a man riding a moped like a Bat out of Hell in a three-piece suit and some gardening gloves. Like, it was such an absurd view!
I got back to the hostel and ate my dinner as I talked to Luke and Pia, a couple from Yorkshire who were travelling after finishing their A-Levels. They were 17 and 18! We played some Rummy and they asked me all about university, since I was on the other end of that journey and they were about to start! They were nice people. I feel I shouldn’t call them kids, that would be a bit disrespectful for people brave enough to go Inter-railing at that age.
I then bid them adieu and headed to the Milano Jazz Club. I kid you not, every time I go to a jazz club, I fall in love with live music more and more. This was a trio playing, a classically trained pianist, an enthusiastic man grooving away on the double bass and an excitable drummer. Oh it was so good. Additionally, the free drink I got with the entry ticket (gin and tonic, of course) was dangerously smooth and nice.

I walked home after midnight. European cities seem to have a night-and-day personality. Culturally tame at day, showing their sights to the tourists and then the red and purple and green doors of night clubs and bars open once the sun has disappeared and the other side of the city comes alive. It was so different walking back through Barcelona at night than it is at day!
Friday 8th July
Friday now. I was actually planning this to be a slow day, especially after the late night beforehand. Therefore, I rolled out of bed (which was dangerous considering it was the top bunk) and made my way out of the hostel in the late morning.
My day yesterday at Sagrada Familia had made me read about Gaudi, one of the most eccentric and creative architects. He had designed a number of houses here in Barcelona and so I plotted the way between them in a small tour of parts of Barcelona I hadn’t yet seen.
I made my way through town to Casa Mila, Casa Batllò and Casa de les Punxes. Each of these were unique and there were crowds of bemused people surrounding each people. Bemused, and the occasional enlightened person at least. It is curious how architecture has become an almost art form to be able to express ideas in an abstract way, much like a lot of the emerging arts in the 20th century.



It was quite a quirky trip and the area of town was nice as well, although it was still very much in the tourist district and so stuffed full of flashing cameras.
I made my back to the hostel. I wanted to spend the afternoon writing about the Seville trip which I did. I actually struggled most with uploading photos. The WordPress app isn’t the greatest for uploading multiple photos at once it seems. Still, I managed it eventually and I awarded myself by buying a quarter of a watermelon and devouring it, probably to the horror of the other people at the hostel. Who in their right mind eats that much watermelon at once, after all?
Al’s Fun Facts and Stats
- Days spent in town: 4
- Bakeries visited: 2
- Pages read: 1200 ± 50
- Jazz clubs visited: 1 and my god was it good
- Memorable meal: Eating about 3 or 4 croissants for an afternoon snack.
- Number of things that went wrong: 0
- Memorable moment: Jazz club easily. Sitting at the red velvet bar stools, a gin and tonic, the moody lighting emphasising the brightly lit band as they all jammed away, playing all the wrong notes correctly.
- Music suggestion based off city: Bill Evans, Waltz for Debby
- Average ginger seen a day: 1.5
- Postcards sent: 0
- Burnt-o-meter: 3/10
- There were no Voi electric scooters to zoom around town on
- Al’s hostel rating: 7/10.
Juanca’s Diary
I am scandalised! A strange man has removed me from my home in Sevilla. And now he carries me around in a satchel all day, stuffed alongside a bottle of water and some sun cream. How undignified for a lady of my stature.
Sure, Barcelona has been OK. But no place for a duck. I saw some churches to doGs but none to any ducks. Mortifying. I saw the biggest pond ever, called Meditating Ian. A strange name I think, why is a pond called Ian? It sparkled a deep blue though and I wished that I could just plunge in.

This new owner of mine, he doesn’t seem to like swimming. I have yet to float. We must do something to correct this…
Grannie