16 – 21 November 2015:
Although the Running of the Bulls or the tomato throwing extravaganza of La Tomatina are well known, we feel like Spain and the Spanish culture are a bit underrated. Chorizo, tapas, paella and sangria, has anyone ever not enjoyed this stuff?! Plus there’s sun, warmth and impressive architecture.
Roslyn touched down in Barcelona just before midday on Monday, pleasantly discovering that a Spanish winter is like a London summer.
IBTM World is a leading global event for the meetings and events industry, with the exhibition running from Tuesday to Thursday. Roslyn’s attendance with London & Partners was as exhibitor, showcasing a select range of London’s meeting and business travel venues and services. Monday was spent setting up the red branded stand. The end result was a hall of an impressive scale filled with colourful displays, and arranged by geographical regions. On Monday night, there was a partner dinner for all 26 occupiers of the London & Partners stand.
Because the majority of stands had their own catering and bars (intended for the stall holders themselves), following on from opening day Tuesday there was a happy hour followed by a welcome reception. Second day Wednesday also ended with another happy hour, as well as a singing performance by the eccentric brand ambassador for Holland.
On Thursday, Brendan arrived in Barcelona with a second printout of Roslyn’s entry pass in hand. He ambitiously managed to make his way onto the ‘exhibitor only’ shuttle bus between the airport and show. Along the way, he noticed that Barcelona seems to have a significant amount of redundant roads and car parks. The airport alone has acres and acres of empty and disused bitumen car parks being swallowed by nature. One car park had a small palm tree emerging from between a join. Perhaps a lot of this has been left over from the Olympics of 1992.
With the same printout of Roslyn’s entry pass, Brendan was also able to gain entry into the exhibition. Given that the target market for the exhibition isn’t individual tourists, there wasn’t really a lot that Brendan could do, but the scale of the exhibition and investment that had been put into some stands was definitely impressive and still provided some helpful ideas for future travel. He also did his best to pick up any souvenirs from the stands.
The show wound down on Thursday afternoon and the majority of Roslyn’s colleagues flew back to London that evening. A fortunate booking error meant we were able head back for the night to the 5 star Hotel Eurostars Grand Marina, located on the harbour. Prior to the 1992 Olympics, this area known as Port Vell (old harbour) was an industrial wasteland plagued by abandoned warehouses and just generally lacking any appeal. The area went through a massive urban transformation to become a yacht basin and entertainment precinct and is now highly frequented by tourists. We assume that the overall concept is similar to Sydney’s Darling Harbour, Melbourne’s Docklands, or Canberra’s Kingston Foreshore. We made our way across the intriguingly contemporary Rambla de Mar bridge, and hunted out tapas for dinner.
We rose on Friday and headed downstairs for a buffet breakfast, before checking out of luxury ahead of our meagre €66 hostel room for Friday night. Once again, we planned on going on a Sandemans free walking tour at 2pm and so wandered up the famous La Rambla, and down the narrow streets in search of the meeting point. Barcelona is a bit strange in that there is quite a lot of graffiti and yet it still feels clean.
We wandered around the area surrounding the cathedral known simply as the Cathedral of Barcelona.
In this time we also located the accommodation that we will be returning to in a few weeks with Roslyn’s family. We went in, and the lady on reception even took us up to show the apartment.
We joined our Sandemans tour of the city that the Romans of 15BC called Barcino, and wandered the city for about 2 hours. Interestingly, our guide told us that the Olympics really helped lift Barcelona to become a tourist destination. The beaches and palm trees of Barcelona today did not exist prior to this. It seems amazing that a city that has firmly established itself as a prominent tourist destination has risen from a place practically not visited as recently as 20 odd years ago.
One of the most interesting things that our guide told us is that at the time of our visit there is movement for Barcelona and the surrounding region of Catalonia to divorce the rest of Spain and become independent in their own right. There are of course complicated politics behind it all, but historically this area has gone through plenty of changes in ‘ownership’. Differentiating themselves from the rest of Spain, Catalonians even have their own slightly variegated language.
Our guide also said that while Catalonia has quite a prosperous economy, the rest of Spain does not, and many of the locals don’t like having to prop up the rest of the country. This is surely also a contributing factor to the independent movement.
Our tour ended at the El Born Cultural Centre, another fairly modern attraction. This building was once a market hall but after being abandoned and falling into decay, refurbishment work started in 2002. This refurbishment work uncovered 18th century remains and so the hall has since become an archaeological showcase.
We then jumped in a taxi and made the trip up the hill to the monolithic Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. This church is just absolutely enormous, and towers above anything else surrounding it. With construction having commenced in the late 1800’s, the church is still a construction site today and the structure is not expected to be fully complete for another several years. After checking into the hostel, we then went out for dinner at a restaurant called Taller de Tapas, it was both delicious and reasonably priced!
Our flights home on Saturday weren’t until the afternoon, so we went up to Montjuic Castle, a former military fortress, in the morning. Sitting atop a hill and accessed via chairlift that is a clear enclosed pod, the ride up to the castle provides an amazing outlook across the ocean of red rooves and the sheer size of the distant Sagrada Familia becomes even more apparent.
As we neared the time of our departure, we stopped in for a final feed at a restaurant/bar on La Rambla. An entertainingly flamboyant host greeted us and sat us down, and before we’d even decided whether we were staying, going, eating or just getting a drink, he’d instructed the waitress that we were having “lunch, lunch, definitely darling”. As we discovered throughout the course of the meal, his favourite saying was “fabulous darling!”
Highlights:
- Exhibition set up on Monday, and partner dinner
- Tuesday opening day of the show with a happy hour and welcome reception to end the day
- Happy hour followed by welcome reception
- Wednesday 2nd day of show, another happy hour, performance from Mr Holland
- Thursday Brendan arrived
- Strolled La Rambla
- Sea of red rooves
- Signature Antoni Gaudí designed buildings
- Neo-Gothic architecture
- Santa Maria del Mar – church funded and built entirely by the working class people
- El Born Cultural Centre – a former market hall, now an archaeological showcase
- Huge Sagrada Familia
- Dinner at Taller de Tapas in Barceloneta (would recommend!)
- Chairlift up to Montjuic Castle, a former military fortress
- From 5 star accommodation Monday-Thursday, to a €66 hostel on Friday night
- Had plenty of chorizo, tapas, paella (its actually pronounced like pay-ay-ah), and sangria
- Possibility of Catalonia and Barcelona becoming independent of Spain
