We both had a much better nights sleep last night than the night before. We are almost fully adapted to the 6 hour time difference from home. I got up about 6:15 AM, about my normal time when I am at home. I was able to make a cup of instant coffee and work on the blog while Stephanie slept in a little longer.
We did not have any specific time to get going this morning, we are not going that far and will not need to be there a long time. Today, we are going to Tibidabo, which is about 45 minutes away from the hotel by public transportation.
According to Wikipedia, Tibidabo is defined as:
Tibidabo is a hill overlooking Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. At 512 meter’s, it is the tallest hill in the Serra de Collserola. Rising sharply to the north-west, it has views over the city and the surrounding coastline. The summit of the hill is occupied by the Sagrat Cor church and adjacent Tibidabo Amusement Park.
I was able to get caught up with all of the blog postings and also add photos to the Photo Albums up through Barcelona Day 2.
We finally started to get ready for today’s adventure at about 9:30 AM. We had a small breakfast in the room, the second round of the breakfast items we had purchased from the grocery store on the first day here.
We did need to go to the Lidl Grocery, only a block away across from the hotel on a side street, for more bottled water. We were completely out of bottled water, having already drank the two 1.5L bottles we purchased yesterday afternoon at the “supermarket”. We headed to the Lidl and picked up some 1.5L bottles of water, as well as some additional breakfast items for tomorrow. While we had thought we had not gotten ripped off for our bottled water yesterday, we actually had. The same size 1.5L bottles in Lidl were 0.22 each, far less then the 1.24 each we paid yesterday. It is not the cost, but the value that seems to matter, but I guess everyone has to make a profit and keep those small stores open.
We took the supplies back to the room and then headed out to go to the Metro station to catch the train to Tibidabo. I had looked on Google Maps yesterday, and had though I knew which Metro station we needed, but I was wrong. We headed to the one I thought I had seen yesterday on Google, but in actuality, we passed by the station we really needed on the way to the incorrect one. Of course, we spent time in the underground station looking for possible connecting tunnels to our required train number, the S1 or the S2, either of which would get us to the next connecting stop. We could not locate the trains we needed at this station so we did a search on the TMB App, which is the app for the national transportation system. That is when we found out we were in the wrong Metro Station and needed another one only about 400 feet away. It was on the other side of the park we were now in, and of course, we went the wrong way around the fountain in the center of the park, but finally arrived at the correct station.
Riding The Train to Tibidabo
After using our passes to go through the automated turnstiles, we headed down to the platform for the S1/S2 trains. This is the starting station for both the S1/S2 outbound trains and the ending station for those same inbound trains, so there was not really any side to choose for the direction of travel from this station.
A train arrived just a couple of minutes after we arrived at the platform, but it did not leave for another 10 minutes. We did not know that so we boarded thinking it would only be in the station a minute or two before departing. We were finally able to pull up the train schedule for this particular train in the TMB app, and it showed a scheduled departure time of 10:31 AM, and that was correct, the train headed out right at 10:31 AM.
This train ride only lasted about 15 minutes before we arrived at the station we needed for the next connection. There was a funicular at this station to take us up the mountain to a bus stop. From there we would then need to ride on a bus the remaining distance up to Tibidabo.
We got off the train at the designated stop and there were some steps leading up from there to the funicular. This was all inside a gated area, so no new tickets were needed (or passes validated) to continue onto the funicular. We were not able to make it on to the very next funicular departure, so we had to wait about 10 minutes for the next one to arrive, The funicular consisted of just one car with areas in the front and back to sit or stand, not really very large.
The Funicular to Tibidabo
The next funicular arrived and we boarded along with several other people. Most everyone complied with the rules and wore masks on the funicular, much more compliant than on the train we had just ridden here on.
After we departed the Funicular at the top station, we needed to catch the 111 bus for the remainder of the journey, only about 10 minutes farther up from this station. The bus station was right outside of the Funicular Station, and we only had to wait about two minutes for the next bus to arrive. These are really small shuttle sized buses, only holding around 20 people or less. We validated our tickets, rode to the top and then exited the bus right at the main entrance to Tibidabo.
The Sagrat Cor
There is a church at the top of the hill called Sagrat Cor. Also. there is a large amusement park here, as well as a few shops and restaurants. There was a ticket office at the entrance, but no one seemed to be making sure everyone had a ticket to enter the grounds of the amusement park. We then thought that the tickets might only be required for riding the rides at the amusement park, and there was no cost to just go into the park and walk around.
From the hilltop park, there were nice view of Barcelona below, but it was really hazy, and partially overcast, not great for pictures. We did find one area where the sun was in the correct position, and we could get good views overlooking Barcelona, and/or the surrounding countryside. We set up the tripod for the camera and took several photos of ourselves with the scenic background.
Overlooking Barcelona – Illegal Tripod Photo!
We were setting up for another photo with the Sagrat Cor church in the background when a park worker came over and told us in broken Spanish/English that we were not allowed to use a tripod, well who knew about that. We surmised it was a possible safety and liability issue for kids running around and possibly tripping on the tripod. We packed away the tripod and just took pictures of the park and surrounding scenery.
Upper Viewing Areas – Sagrat Cor
We decided to head up the hill to the church itself, we had seen people up high on some of the church steeples. We headed up to the Sagrat Cor church on some side steps and saw a sign about the admission price of Euro 5.00 per person to go to the top of the church spires, partway on an elevator, the remainder by steps. Unfortunately, the tickets were being sold down one level from where we had just climbed up to, so we went back down a lot of steps and found the automated ticket machine to purchase admission tickets to the upper areas.
We waited for an elevator to arrive at our level, and in a couple of minutes it arrived, and a man inside took our tickets and asked if we spoke Spanish or English. He then proceeded to give us some information on the church history and its construction as we rode the elevator up to the top. As he tried to speak faster to get through his spiel before we reached the top, his english got more mixed in with spanish.
Climbing Steps to the Top – Sagrat Cor
Once we arrived as far up as the elevator would take us, we had to proceed up some steps to the next viewing platform level. From there, we had to go up a narrow spiral stairway to get to the next set of larger spiral steps on the inside the main steeple.
At the top was some more steps leading to the small opening at the top of the steeple to head outside. There was a narrow viewing area all around the steeple at this height and we got some good photos of the surrounding areas and of the park below.
At The Top – Sagrat Cor
We headed back down all of the various steps and made to the first level where some bathrooms were located, and took advantage of those. There is an upper and lower chapel in the church, and there is a pipe organ in the upper chapel. Someone was playing the pipe organ, so we went inside the chapel and listened for a bit and Stephane made a short video to capture the sound. That video is posted in the “Video” section of the blog.
We headed back down to the lower chapel and Stephanie went inside to take some photos while I went all the way to the bottom to patiently try and get a good photo of the front of the church with as few of people in it as I could get. I was only partially successful. Once Stephanie came back outside, we decided to catch the next bus back down to the funicular and head back into town to get some lunch.
Seafood At The St. Joseph’s Market
The trip back seemed a lot shorter and was much easier mentally since we knew the route. Once back at the Catalunya Metro Station we had initially departed from this morning, we headed over to Las Ramblas to go to the St. Joseph Market and see if we could find something to eat there.
The market had been closed for the holiday yesterday, and it seemed that the vendors and patrons were making up for that with the volume of people inside the market today. It was packed and every eating area inside, which mostly seemed to be serving Tapas, was very crowded. Most of them were set up with a bar around the outside perimeter of the area where the food was prepared and then served to people sitting at the bar. People were shoulder to shoulder while eating, really packed in like sardine tapas!
Lunch At The St. Joseph’s Market
That was way too crowded for us, so we headed to a small area on the perimeter of the market where several small restaurants had tables that were set up outside. We found one with an available table and sat down to look at the menu. We found some things we thought looked good and decided to stay.
Lunch At The St. Joseph’s Market
I ordered a pork sandwich, which was slices of cooked pork on a toasted long skinny bun with cheese. Stephanie ordered a Serrano Ham with cheese on the same type of bread. We also ordered some spicy fries, which were small wedges of fried potatoes served with a spicy dipping sauce. We also ordered two large draft beers.
It looked like they had two different types of beers, one darker than the other, based on what another that was next to us was drinking, but when Stephanie asked about what type of beers they had, the response she got was “small and large”. We could only see one tap inside the small restaurant, so maybe the glasses at the other table were slightly different colors, giving the effect that the beers were different, but obviously, they were the same.
The food was really tasty, but my sandwich was a little greasy, I guess the pork slices were slightly pan seared in olive oil. We split another beer and enjoyed relaxing and watching the people in the market.
Entrance To The St. Joseph’s Market
By the time we were finished eating and enjoying our beers, the market crowd had dwindled down, so after paying the bill, we walked around inside the market and looked at all of the food, fresh seafood, lots of hams, spices, vegetables and other items for sale. It was quite colorful. By now, the skies had tuned cloudy, and it seemed cooler, so we left the market area to walk down Las Ramblas a little farther.
We started to feel some drizzle, so we turned around and headed back in the direction of the hotel, stopping off at the Carrefour Grocery for a few items. We wanted to purchase some Ricola drops because our room is so dry from the heat, but those kinds of items are only sold at a Pharmacy. There was a Pharmacy at the next corner, and the Ricola purchase was made. With the shopping complete we took a back road back to the hotel to see some different shops It turned out to be a little longer route, the streets are just not square or perpendicular to each other, many are on a slight diagonal.
Back at the room, we rested and relaxed. I was able to complete this post and Stephanie took a nap.
Altar In The Parròquia de Sant Pere Nolasc Mercedaris Church
As planned, we went to church at 7:20 PM for the 7:30 PM Vigil Mass for The Feast of the Immaculate Conception at the Parròquia de Sant Pere Nolasc Mercedaris Church. There was some type of special celebration going on there right after we arrived Many different families brought up decorative stars, each one with a letter that spelled out MARIA and then IMMACULADA. The stars were hung on a display in two rows. There were lots of prayers and songs, of course all in Spanish, so we were not able to understand anything. We thought Mass would start late after that special presentation, but it did not.
There apparently was not a Vigil Mass scheduled for tonight, just that special presentation. There were a few other people who got there around the same time as us, obviously expecting a Vigil Mass. It was not to be, everyone was leaving the church. Now we will plan to go to Mass at 9:00 AM tomorrow morning, hopefully they will follow the typical Sunday Schedule, and not present us with any other surprises.
The Parròquia de Sant Pere Nolasc Mercedaris Church Celebration
We had thought about getting some “to go” dinner from a small pizza restaurant right near the church, but it was packed with people, so we now had no plan for a light dinner. We wandered around the area near the hotel looking for somewhere to eat and then just decided it was easier and less stressful to go back to our favorite spot in Las Ramblas, Il Poma. It was not that far to walk and when we got there, we got a table for two next to the window so we could enjoy the Christmas lights outside.
We ordered completely different food that we had not ever had there, some ham and cheese Croquettes, and a Carbonara Pizza, and of course some red wine. Everything was really good, the pizza was excellent, and we really enjoyed the taste of the croquettes. It was a nice, quick, peaceful and good dinner, just what we wanted tonight since it was already 8:30 PM.
We walked back to the room and started some packing since we will not have as much time tomorrow morning, now taking time out to go to Mass before we check out. We enjoyed some Rosa wine we purchased this morning at Lidl and enjoyed listening to some Christmas music on Spotify while we packed.
It was about 11:00 PM before we felt our food was settled enough to head to bed for the night. We were tired, having done a lot of up and down step climbing today. Our overall step count on Stephanie’s watch was a measly 13,900 steps, as compared to yesterdays count of 22,643 steps.