- Barcelona ?? -

tonyfaestoney

I have been to magic fountains at 'Montjuic' set in front of stunning building with lasers coming out of roof...(absolute must) I love Barcelona and gets hairs on back of neck going when they play Freddy Mercury's 'Barcelona' olymic song to the jetting water!!
If you are just there for 1 day then I would suggest going to see 'Sagrad Familia', don't need to go in and probably not worth going in as it is a building site. It is an awsom site and you will appreciate the work and craftsmanship gone into building it.
Next, I would take a walk down 'Las Ramblas', sit for a beer and people watch (huge ice cold glasses).

As for clubbing, the world's yer oyster!! There are bars & clubs galore ALL OVER the city. Loads & loads of good clubs but the good one's are all scattered about a bit. If you want run of the mill busy clubs try Port Olympic. Likes of Baja beach club (1st club in world to insert microchips under skin so you don't carry cash, if your a member). Also there are clubs in Port Vell in the Maremagnum shopping centre (shops by day, clubs & bars by night).
There are clubs and bars in loads of square of Las Ramblas, you will see it is just a maze of streets coming off Las ramblas, irish bars and all the usual stuff.
Up diagonal there are heaps of clubs including Pacha (open til 6am).
My tip for clubbing would be La Terraza, only open in Summer and not sure if it will be open yet, awsome sunsets & quality tunes.
There is tons & tons to choose from, reckon you should grab few beers during day and ask what people think, bar staff etc.

1 thing though, it is not cheap, talking 10-12 euros in most clubs for a beer or vodka!! Another thing is search out the spanish clubs if its the weekend as they open til mid-day!!!!!

From the airport in a taxi it would take about 40 mins to centre if that and be about 25e tops!!

Port Aventura if I remember right is 2hrs on train. 1 other tip is if you have time take the turistic bus from Port Vell. There are 2 red & blue line, can't remember which is which get a map before you get on or something. You can get on & off both lines & swap colour lines as much as you want, best way to see city...no question!!

pbright

Thanks Tonyfaestoney. Great tips and details, perfect!! Do you have any more to tell me?? We would be flying to Reus, and land at night so will not get to baralone till around 11.30 that night :-(. We would be staying here as i will have vouchers:
http://www.hilton.co.uk/dispatch/ViewPropertyHomePageForm?hid=11009353&ViewPropertyHomePage=&formName=ViewPropertyHomePageForm
......What do you think in terms of standards and location...says 5* but the pics dont look to great:( 2hours is long to port aventura, and i would be a saturday we would visit it but i really want to go. Maybe get the early train?

tonyfaestoney

Hold on I was getting mixed up with El Prat and Reus airports, you must be flying Ryannowhere?? They say they fly to a city and you find it is couple hours from the city :mad: Can't tell you much on Reus, plenty trains or taxis from there though.

Watch with PortAventura as no problem getting train from Barcelona but the last train is quite early and you would be stuck there til next morning.

The Hilton where you are staying is a bit out of the way of most things you will do, good for designer shops though.

Best thing to do is get metro, you buy what is called a T10 ticket from Tobacconists or in the underground itself. Honestly no metros where i live but it is a caker, get a tourist book before you go and it will have a metro map & tell you which stop to get off. On metro itself you can't go wrong, you can use T10 ticket 10 times and you & partner could share it, you can also start on a red line & move onto green etc and only counts as 1 journey. It is best way to get about city, pretty much 10-15 mins to cross city. You could also get taxis, not as expensive as here. Don't know the hotel itself but sure it will be alright.

Don't worry but do be careful of pickpockets around Ramblas area specially at night, keep your wits about you, they got my phone & sunglasses previously.

Don't eat anywhere on Ramblas itself as it is overpriced, did find 1 nice place on left hand side of ramblas if walking towards Port Vell called 'The Attic'. Really trendy place, 'cutlery' chandelier going up 2 levels in foyer. Get a seat looking down onto Ramblas & enjoy, think there is an open air restaurant on roof but never went up there. Generally though avoid Ramblas, even walking down 1 side street off it you will notice significant difference in prices.

Got to try some tapas, get them everywhere, in fact I did read there are over 10,000 restaurants in Barcelona.

I have a million things I could tell you but you are probably best to go and do your own thing, read up before you go to see what would interest you.

Don't worry you won't touch the tip of the iceberg on things to do, but...you will go back, I did several times.

By the way most clubs are open til 4am, some are 6 :beer: and the spanish are just plain mental, 10,11, 12 mid-day they shut:eek:

Another good restaurant that gets good reviews is Agua at Port Olympic, not typically spanish though. If you like seafood there are loads of nice restaurants and are spanish based which I think is best to try. Les Quinze Nits on Plaza Reial is what everyone raves about, cheap and good quality but you will queue for about an hour before it even opens & longer once opened :eek: Lot of restaurants are empy til 9.30 to 10pm before they sart to pick up, same with pubs, apart from Brits!! If you want to know the best restaurants, they will be the ones with the large queues

Sure you will love it, when are you going?

pbright

Thanks for all this info...just what i needed. Feel free to go into more detail if you want...this is perfect, and i am rubbish at research. Nightlife is important, and we want to try go to a few places in one night. We love tappas to so feel free to reccommend. Thats a shame about the hotel being a bit out the way. Its not to far is it...has anyone stayed here?

Please keep it all coming.