Madrid was a good time for my mom and sister and I did take great pleasure in showing my family around my favourite city, though our next stop was Barcelona, a city I had already been to but was happy to go to again. My mom had, in fact, also been to Barcelona couple of years earlier, but wasn’t able to see much of the city unfortunately. After a nice tour of Barcelona over the first two days, we got treated to quite a high quantity of delicious food, including this paella, recommended to me by my roommate Andrew’s girlfriend, Noelle, who did her year abroad there in Barcelona. It was quite delicious!
Now, on my first visit to Barcelona there was one thing that I had really wanted to do that I did not get the opportunity to, and that is going to visit Montserrat.
Montserrat is a religious monastery on top of a mountain about one hour outside of Barcelona, famous for its monastery (obviously), its hiking trails and its amazing views over the landscape. Unfortunately, Catherine did not want to go hiking (I would have gone in an instant), so we didn’t do that, but I must say the town, and the views, were quite impressive!
We even took the cable car up the mountain, which was also quite cool!
Furthermore, on this trip to Barcelona I met some distant relatives that I didn’t even know I had. Back in the 60s when my grandparents were immigrating to Canada, these people instead immigrated to Barcelona. Now, I’m no history expert, however at the time Franco was ruling Spain, and he actually ruled until 1975, so immigrating to Spain was not the soundest choice financially, I’d say, however if I understand the story correctly I think that she was in a relationship with a Spanish person, who she would later marry.
Barcelona was nice, but the highlight of this trip has to have been London, for both positive and negative reasons. You can read more about my experience in London HERE.
-Daniele
