Lead With The Hips: What I did in Barcelona.

I have a ridiculously big post for you today, showing you about a million photos of Barcelona, and telling you all about what I did. Because it's so picture heavy (still only about a 20th of what I took), just click on the jump to view the rest of the post!

In short, I had an amazing time. I've been to some really amazing cities, but Barcelona is easily the most beautiful. I've never been so tired either - we only went for 4 days, and felt as though we needed to cram in as much as possible! There's so much to do, and I'm already planning another trip. We stayed in Hotel Peninsular, which is just a small, very basic hotel right in the centre. The location was fab, couldn't have asked for more, and we got breakfast so it did the job nicely. I'd recommend going for something a little fancier if you can afford it, but if you're on a tight budget it's really fine!

We arrived at Barcelona airport sort of mid-afternoon, so we had time for a bit of exploring. We wandered round the market, which is absolutely AMAZING. So many incredible fruits and vegetables, about 5 times the size of anything Sainsbury's offered. Seafood and meat and spices I've never even seen before, and don't get me started on the chocolate stalls, I could have stayed there for hours.

Just look at these amazing ice lollies! I didn't get any because it was cooooold, but they were only €2. How tempting does that mojito one look?

These smoothies were €1. Not even kidding. I had the strawberry and coconut, and I also tried the coconut and dragonfruit. They were so sweet but so yummy, they were amazing to have straight after breakfast.

Isn't this almost enough to make you want to eat more vegetables?

These cherries and strawberries were actually ridiculous. They were about twice the size of normal ones, and also about half the price. Spain clearly only sends us their most rubbish ones, which is really not fair.

For god's sake, just look at this chocolate. I bought lots. I've eaten it all.

After lots of wandering around, exploring and dribbling, we headed off for dinner at Hard Rock Cafe (you have to ease yourself into culture, obviously). I had the best pulled pork sandwich of my life, and then a cheeky cocktail in a nearby bar we discovered. We still needed an early night though, because we had a ridiculously busy day coming up.

The Wednesday was the most cultured day I think I've ever had. We hopped on the tourist bus and spent the whole day seeing Barcelona from the freezing cold top deck, with extremely numb hands and noses. But it was so worth it, and we managed to get some amazing photos. We finished the day off with some tapas, paella and Sangria (is that better than the Hard Rock?) and went to bed extremely content.

Here's a quick shot of Las Ramblas. This is the street our hotel was on, and is one of the main tourist areas. It's packed with little shops, bars and restaurants, and is constantly busy.

And this was the highlight of the whole trip: the Sagrada Familia. The single most beautiful, breathtaking building I had ever experienced and I honestly think everyone needs to go at some point in their life because the pictures do it absolutely no justice whatsoever. Gaudi spent 40 years of his life working on this before he died, and it is still an ongoing project to this day: the entry fees go towards the completion, which is expected to be in 2025. You'll have to drag me away when it's done!

The amount of detail in every tiny part of the architecture was ridiculous, everywhere you turned there was so much to look at.

This is the only part of the basilica Gaudi managed to complete before his death in 1926, look at the detail!

This is the view from the top of one of the towers! The towers are amazing and you have to go up them - it's a lift almost to the top, then you walk up the last 10m to get this incredible view of the whole of Barcelona. The spiral staircase back down is not something I'd love to experience again, however ...

Just inside the entrance of Park Guell: the park designed by Gaudi. It's full of his work - mostly mosaic sculptures and is so, so beautiful!

Mosaic edging round the side of the main terrace.

And the view of Barcelona from the same spot. Can you spot the Sagrada in the distance, just to the left of those two towers?

You can't even tell, because I'm a crap photographer, but the views!

Me (on the left) and my friend Beth just chillin', Gaudi's #1 fans.

Our first tapas! L-R: Mussels, some sort of incredible pork in sauce, potato and cheese croquette and baguette, and that's all I want to talk about because the last one was NOT good (also, I don't know what it was).

Next day consisted of wandering around the city, shopping and sleeping. What can I say, we're lazy fashion students.

Typical architecture. How impressed would you be by buildings like this in the UK? Well, they're everywhere in Barcelona.

And the designer stores get the best of them, typical.

Meee stood at the fountains after a successful bit of chocolate shopping, and two extremely pretty buildings: Casa Amatller by Cadafalch and Casa Batllo by Gaudi.

LOOK at that pizza. My god was it good. Couldn't tell you what it was called, the food coma seems to have messed with my memories it was that severe.

On the last day nobody but me really had anything left that they wanted to do, so they just went and did a bit more shopping and went for a couple of walks. I, however, wanted to go to the AQUARIUM. Who else loves aquariums? I'm not even ashamed. And I'm so glad I went, because it was such a warm, sunny day, the walk down was one of my favourite parts of the whole trip and the port nearby was just so pretty in the sunshine. I spent the day here, then we went out for another meal at Hard Rock (okay, I'm a little ashamed of that. But god, was it good) and got an early night, ready for our extremely early, depressing trip home in the morning.

Quick shot of the port in the sunshine. I kind of wished all the boats had price tags on them, I'm so nosy and wanted to know how much they were worth.