Musings

Reflections on life lived by a coast

  • Home
  • Travel
  • Yoga
You are here: Home / Travel / Strolling Barcelona Streets

Strolling Barcelona Streets

February 24, 2013 •

Image of Barcelona cathedral steeple

Barcelona cathe­dral sil­hou­ettes

Barcelona is a city of many charms, from gothic antiq­ui­ties and Roman ruins to dis­tricts full of 19th cen­tury apart­ment build­ings. It is justly famous for dis­tinc­tive archi­tec­ture from Gaudi and his Mod­ernist con­tem­po­raries.

Barcelona is highly walk­a­ble, as long as you prize com­fort over fash­ion, or wear truly com­fort­able boots. You can stroll long boule­vards and gen­tle hills until you reach the out­skirts of the city. Many neigh­bor­hoods have lots of tiny pedes­trian-only streets with shops that open morn­ings and late after­noons for peo­ple shop­ping for their next meal.

Image of bikes and motorcycles

Bikes every­where

The locals buzz about on motor­cy­cles and shared-access bikes. We’ve noted a big increase in adop­tion of the shared bikes in the 12 months since our last visit here.

For those of us with­out bikes, we appre­ci­ate the metro, buses and trams. For just under 10 € you can get a 10-ride ticket that works across the trans­port sys­tem. There’s no prob­lem shar­ing the ticket with your spouse or trav­el­ing com­pan­ion. Yes­ter­day after­noon we used up half the ticket…

Image of hot chocolate and coffee

Won­der­ful cof­fee shops

When you need to rest your feet, there are lots of parks and green­belts, or the nearly ubiq­ui­tous cafes and tapas bars.

We found a won­der­ful cof­fee shop just out­side the Barri Gotic where the cof­fee beans are fresh roasted, and the bar­ris­tas pride them­selves on the qual­ity of their cof­fee and hot choco­lates. My hot choco­late was so thick and dense with choco­late that a spoon could prac­ti­cally stand up by itself.

I love win­dow shop­ping here, espe­cially the niche spe­cialty stores.

Shop window image

Store spe­cial­iz­ing in can­dles and beeswax prod­ucts

Shop window with fans

Shops spe­cial­iz­ing in fans

But what I find sur­pris­ing is the lack of yoga stu­dios. After walk­ing around the city for two days, I’ve come across few ref­er­ences to yoga. Here is the only pub­lic men­tion of yoga I have seen so far.

Graffiti in window

Where are the yoga stu­dios?

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

Recent Posts

  • Wet Sand, Wet Boots, Birds
  • Living with Vintage Items
  • Slowing Down
  • Reflections on My Camino
  • Going Off the Beaten Track in France

© 2020 by Christine Thompson. All rights reserved. • Log in