Discovering Barcelona and its visitors on a lazy afternoon.

I finally took another trip to the beach last weekend. Here it is September and still beach weather!! I packed my bag and off I went. On my one previous trip to the beach I had had the glorious idea of walking. But the city centre of Barcelona is indeed quite large and I underestimated the distance to the beach from my apartment, which meant that, on arrival, I completely collapsed! But it was great to be there!

Walking might be the best way to get to know the city, if you don’t get tempted and sidetracked by all the attractions on the way! If you are fit and have enough time (and a pair of comfy shoes) it can be fun, but if you are actually planning on arriving at the beach for some sun, then you can also just take the metro! A single ticket costs just 1, 25 euros, but I would advice you to buy a ‘T-10’ card (6, 90 euros), for 10 journeys on the metro, bus or local train! You can visit any place in the city so cheaply!

This time I took the metro to ‘Drassanes’ and walked to one of the Barceloneta beaches. On the way you see more of what is typically associated with a Mediterranean city: a broad beach boulevard with palm trees, wooden benches, a harbour with numerous yachts of all sizes, a lot of people taking a stroll like myself, skaters and cyclists. Barcelona is becoming a real cyclist-friendly city, it is amazing! Next time I will hire a bicycle to get to the beach.

Once there, relaxed and outstretched, I amused myself with ‘place the tourist’. My friends insist that you can determine the origin of a typical holidaymaker by their clothing choices and mannerisms. But as the beachgoers were all in various states of semi-nakedness, this was not so easy so I listened to see where they came from! People-watching is such a relaxing and interesting past-time! As far as I could tell, there was a large group of Dutch students, an Austrian middle-aged couple, a few American teenagers touring Europe, a Belgian guy who spent the best part of an hour on the phone with his ex-girlfriend, two Swiss girls talking Schwyzerdeutsch (I couldn´t understand a thing), two Italian girls, two German guys who were trying to chat-up the two Italian girls (but perhaps slightly lacking in the required flair and passion)!

On my way back I heard Russian and Portuguese and a great deal of Spanish on every corner. I doubt that there is any kind of nationality not currently present in Barcelona! I hope that the beach weather lasts a little longer! For anyone studying Spanish in Barcelona, the beach is an absolute ‘must’! See you there!

Katherine