“Being the lonely traveler has its own advantages. For starters, you can decide where to go, what to see, what not to see, how much time to spend etc etc without any debate. Further, in an eventuality of your decision backfiring (as the case maybe, sometimes!!), you don’t have to hide your face from any angry comments from anyone. Also, there are chances of modifying your travel plans somewhere in the middle of it…”
So were my thoughts as I happily booked the tickets for a high-speed Train from Madrid to Barcelona this Sunday. But along the journey, between the various photos and videos, I started feeling like talking to someone, telling him/her about the thoughts, making a joke out an incident etc etc.. After all, what’s a joke, if it doesn’t have anyone to laugh at?? Well, I could have narrated the entire incidents to someone over phone, but alas … I am neither JK Rowling nor Agatha Christie nor anyone of those famed writers to make the listener visualize the picturesque… so all I could manage in the telephonic conversation was terms such as “wonderful beaches filled with more-wonderful people, beautiful monuments, nice gardens, stunning sceneries, fascinating aquarium etc etc etc”
Let me just put-down some thoughts that criss-crossed my minds through the journey -
Besides the thrill of seeing a new city, what made me take up this trip was to experience the high-speed tube trains. Imagine the trains go at a speed of about 250-300 km per hour!! It just takes under 3 hours to cover the distance of Madrid-Barcelona. Had seen the trains in numerous movies and enjoyed the scenes… It was a good comfortable ride .. but then .. a word of caution – If you are one of the persons who like to enjoy the sceneries outside, this one is not for you!! As, one second you see a thing, and by the time you register it in your mind, you are few kilometers away from it!!
Barcelona has a special bus services for its tourists. There are three ring-routes (named Red, Blue and Green Lines) on which the Buses ply. You can purchase a day’s ticket and can hop-on and hop-off from one bus to another. The Red-route takes you to the Northern Barcelona with various cathedrals, Castles, musuems etc besides going to the world-famous Football Stadium. The Blue and Green routes take you to the Southern side.. to the beach-front
I decided to take the Beach-route first as I was pretty bored of seeing the cathedrals, museums, castles etc etc. Nothing wrong with them, but I had already seen many in Madrid and adjoining country-side so I thought to give it a miss and venture on the beach side. I also took a rope-way to have an aerial view of the city alongside the sea.. It was awesome.. Up on the hillock, I could see the Barcelona port which boasts of many cruise-liners as well as the normal ship-service to Italy etc. Barcelona boasts of a wonderful beachfront and hoardes of tourists come here (especially during summers) to soak up the sun. And what I saw there was also not below expectations!! ;-) And I hope everyone agrees that beaches are not meant for fully-dressed people, as they run a grave risk of getting their clothes wet !! So lets move ahead….
Then I went to an Aquarium where they had created a “under-sea” walk where you walk through an glass-covered enclave with sharks and other kinds of marine creatures sailing above you and besides you.. It was fantastic .. Also, I met an Indian family from Delhi there who seemed to be having a good time on a Europe tour
After having seen plenty much of South and time remaining for my return-trip, I thought of going North with only one thing in mind – the Barcelona Football Stadium. I didn’t visit any other places and just saw them on the open-roof buses as I thought I could have more and more time in the Stadium. That’s were my decision backfired !!! I reached the Stadium at 2:45 pm and got to know that it closed at 2:30 :-( Having not-seen any other places in the North, I couldn’t even see this one !! Going all the way back to see some more places was not a good idea as I could risk missing my train. So I reached the train station around 3:45 (with my original train timings at 6:30!!) However, I managed to pre-pone my tickets to 4:30 pm ..and hence by 7:15 pm, I was back home!!
Well, that was exactly how I felt when I reached Madrid.. felt like home.. as over the past few months, this city doesn’t seem stranger to me .. I know most of the places around.. I have even showed some tourists the way to certain places.. I might even be in many photos taken by the tourists as I roamed across the streets!!
So that’s the story… bit lengthy one.. but considering that I put down an entire day and an entire city for you, I think I was in fact on the shorter version… As I said before, I am not a talented writer to make you visualize things.. For better information on Barcelona, you can do some googling!!
So were my thoughts as I happily booked the tickets for a high-speed Train from Madrid to Barcelona this Sunday. But along the journey, between the various photos and videos, I started feeling like talking to someone, telling him/her about the thoughts, making a joke out an incident etc etc.. After all, what’s a joke, if it doesn’t have anyone to laugh at?? Well, I could have narrated the entire incidents to someone over phone, but alas … I am neither JK Rowling nor Agatha Christie nor anyone of those famed writers to make the listener visualize the picturesque… so all I could manage in the telephonic conversation was terms such as “wonderful beaches filled with more-wonderful people, beautiful monuments, nice gardens, stunning sceneries, fascinating aquarium etc etc etc”
Let me just put-down some thoughts that criss-crossed my minds through the journey -
Besides the thrill of seeing a new city, what made me take up this trip was to experience the high-speed tube trains. Imagine the trains go at a speed of about 250-300 km per hour!! It just takes under 3 hours to cover the distance of Madrid-Barcelona. Had seen the trains in numerous movies and enjoyed the scenes… It was a good comfortable ride .. but then .. a word of caution – If you are one of the persons who like to enjoy the sceneries outside, this one is not for you!! As, one second you see a thing, and by the time you register it in your mind, you are few kilometers away from it!!
Barcelona has a special bus services for its tourists. There are three ring-routes (named Red, Blue and Green Lines) on which the Buses ply. You can purchase a day’s ticket and can hop-on and hop-off from one bus to another. The Red-route takes you to the Northern Barcelona with various cathedrals, Castles, musuems etc besides going to the world-famous Football Stadium. The Blue and Green routes take you to the Southern side.. to the beach-front
I decided to take the Beach-route first as I was pretty bored of seeing the cathedrals, museums, castles etc etc. Nothing wrong with them, but I had already seen many in Madrid and adjoining country-side so I thought to give it a miss and venture on the beach side. I also took a rope-way to have an aerial view of the city alongside the sea.. It was awesome.. Up on the hillock, I could see the Barcelona port which boasts of many cruise-liners as well as the normal ship-service to Italy etc. Barcelona boasts of a wonderful beachfront and hoardes of tourists come here (especially during summers) to soak up the sun. And what I saw there was also not below expectations!! ;-) And I hope everyone agrees that beaches are not meant for fully-dressed people, as they run a grave risk of getting their clothes wet !! So lets move ahead….
Then I went to an Aquarium where they had created a “under-sea” walk where you walk through an glass-covered enclave with sharks and other kinds of marine creatures sailing above you and besides you.. It was fantastic .. Also, I met an Indian family from Delhi there who seemed to be having a good time on a Europe tour
After having seen plenty much of South and time remaining for my return-trip, I thought of going North with only one thing in mind – the Barcelona Football Stadium. I didn’t visit any other places and just saw them on the open-roof buses as I thought I could have more and more time in the Stadium. That’s were my decision backfired !!! I reached the Stadium at 2:45 pm and got to know that it closed at 2:30 :-( Having not-seen any other places in the North, I couldn’t even see this one !! Going all the way back to see some more places was not a good idea as I could risk missing my train. So I reached the train station around 3:45 (with my original train timings at 6:30!!) However, I managed to pre-pone my tickets to 4:30 pm ..and hence by 7:15 pm, I was back home!!
Well, that was exactly how I felt when I reached Madrid.. felt like home.. as over the past few months, this city doesn’t seem stranger to me .. I know most of the places around.. I have even showed some tourists the way to certain places.. I might even be in many photos taken by the tourists as I roamed across the streets!!
So that’s the story… bit lengthy one.. but considering that I put down an entire day and an entire city for you, I think I was in fact on the shorter version… As I said before, I am not a talented writer to make you visualize things.. For better information on Barcelona, you can do some googling!!
