After chatting with a few travelers at the hostel tonight, I thought it might be helpful to relay some of our thoughts on staying at hostels vs. hotels vs. bed and breakfasts since we’ve recently been asked by a few people which we think is better.  The short answer is there is no one or the other we would pick – it really depends on the place itself.  Hostels generally have more of a social atmosphere and a younger clientele, but we’ve stayed at a lot of hostels that have people in their 30s and 40s staying there.  The nice thing about hostels is they usually have a fully equipped kitchen so you can cook a meal if you want, the bad thing is that it’s almost always shared bathrooms, which can be gross.  B&Bs can really be hit or miss, but we’ve been happy with the two we’ve stayed at so far.  Like I said before, though, at a B&B, you’re in someone’s home so you tend to feel like you have to stay quiet and out of the way.  Hotels in Europe have been fairly good so far, but at a hotel you’ll never meet anybody or get advice about where to go or what to see (unless you’re at a small owner-run hotel like the one we stayed at in Avignon).  The plus side of a hotel is the noise insulation (you don’t get woken up as other people come and go) and the privacy, especially having your own bathroom.  It’s also nice to have someone clean your room everyday, although we generally turn the housekeeping staff away because they come so early! 

For comparison sake, here’s a list of our accommodations so far:
1. Lisbon, Portugal – Rossio Hostel; loved everything except the showers
2. Porto, Portugal – Rivoli Cinema Hostel; great but no social atmosphere
3. Madrid, Spain – Barbieri Internation Hostel; worst place we’ve stayed so far
4. Barcleona, Spain – Itaca Hostel; great private double room that felt like a hotel
5. Montpellier, France – Les Arbousiers B&B (Jean-Luc & Ann d’Auzac); fantastic hospitality & a big spacious room, option for home cooked meal for dinner
6. Nimes, France – Campanile Nimes Centre; not close to anything but ok budget hotel
7. Avignon, France – Hotel Boquier; nice owner-run small hotel
8. Nice, France – Ibis Nice Centre; first stay at this budget hotel chain, no frills but very clean & fairly new
9. Lyon, France – Ibis Lyon Centre Perrache; bigger room & cheaper than Nice
10. Geneva, Switzerland – City Hostel Geneva; dorm-style hostel so no social atmosphere,  private twin room w/nice bunk beds, Wi-Fi broken
11. Bern, Switzerland – Bern Backpackers Hotel Glocke; great except for check-in policy sucked and there weren’t enough bathrooms
12. Lucerne, Switzerland – NH Lucerne Hotel; a step-up from Ibis, bigger & more luxurious room but not worth regular price
13. Strasbourg, France – Hotel Le Grillon; 2nd worst place we’ve stayed, very dirty, felt like I was in an attic, shared bathrooms
14. Rouen, France – Ibis Rouen Centre; standard small Ibis room but not close to city center!
15. Le Mont-Saint-Michel – Hotel Formule Verte; very basic budget hotel but ok
16. Caen, France – Bristol Hotel; cramped over-priced budget hotel, bad Wi-Fi
17. Paris, France – Ibis Paris Gare de L’est; typical Ibis but a bit older
18. Munich, Germany – Ibis Muenchen City; typical Ibis, bathroom a bit small
19. Berlin, Germany – Best Western Hotel City Ost; not in city center but commute was no problem, a bit better than Ibis, bathroom was nicer
20. Hamburg, Germany – Ibis Hamburg Alster Centrum; again typical Ibis
21. Dusseldorf, Germany – Ibis Dusseldorf Zentrum; not close enough to center
22. Cologne, Germany – Station Hostel for Backpackers; room was nice, bathroom was gross, didn’t socialize with anyone at the hostel
23. Luxembourg – Novotel Luxembourg Kirchberg; much nicer than Ibis but not worth regular price
24. Brussels, Belgium – lucdelux B&B; small basic room but comfortable
25. Brugge, Belgium – Lybeer Travellers’ Hostel; 3rd worst place we’ve stayed but good social atmosphere & really good Wi-Fi

After travelling by train in Portugal, Spain, France and Switzerland, I thought it might be informative to put up some information about stuff like ticket checks, etc.

I was prompted to do because, while travelling by myself from Lucerne Switzerland to Strasbourg France, I nearly missed the ticket validation machine when changing trains in Basel, Switzerland (when you travel between France and Switzerland you must walk through customs, where you may be stopped and searched at random, and change trains at a border city, such as Basel or Geneva).  You see, in Switzerland (and Spain and Portugal), you generally buy tickets for a specific train, so you don’t need to validate, but in France, most tickets are for general travel that day, so you must validate your ticket by time-stamping it in a yellow ticket validator located at the entrance to the trains. We had learned to do this while in France (although you don’t have anything to validate when you’re just using an Eurail pass) but after going into Switzerland I had totally forgotten about this and got onto the train to Strasbourg without seeing the validator machine at all.  Thankfully there was a middle-aged lady sitting across from me who heard the announcement (in French) reminding passengers to validate their tickets, and she turned and asked me if I knew where to validate the tickets.  I realized that I hadn’t done so, and she asked me to take her ticket with me when I said I would go find the ticket validator.  I had to run pretty fast since the train was going to depart in a few minutes, but I managed to make it to the gate and back in time with both our tickets validated.

The other thing I wanted to make note of is the frequency of ticket checks.  In Spain, our tickets weren’t checked on the trip between Madrid and Barcelona, but were checked when going from Barcelona to Montpellier.  In France, our train tickets were checked about half the time, usually only during the longer distance journeys.  Whenever the tickets were checked, it was by SNCF officers who would go back and forth after each stop, somehow remebering whose tickets they had seen and whose they hadn’t.  This seemed like a totally inefficient system to me, but I guess it’s the only way to control a train system where you can get on at any stop and get off at any stop and only your ticket will show how far you’ve paid to go. In Switzerland, train tickets were checked everytime, but it seemed like they didn’t have dedicated ticket checkers, they used the regular staff of the train.  I guess if you really want to, you can try to get away with not buying a ticket in Spain or France, but don’t do it in Switzerland!

Although I’m looking forward to heading to France tomorrow, I am also sad that we are leaving Barcelona.  There is so much to see and do that we could probably spend another few days here!  Fortunately, we managed to zoom around today and see most of the remaining sights we haven’t done yet.

We started our morning by walking towards the Arc de Triomf that was built in 1888 for the Universal Exposition in Barcelona.  Because both of us were sick of the bread/cereal at the hostel, we decided we would grab breakfast on our way out and randomly stopped at a cafe when we got close to the Arc de Triomf.  The Asian lady at the counter tried speaking to me in a dialect of Chinese I wasn’t familiar with and when I spoke to her in English, she called out a nice Filipino waiter to help us.  He tried to explain some of the menu to us, but his English was sort of hard to understand too, so we decided to just order two sandwiches, which we were guessing were made with some kind of sausage, and two cafe con lech (coffee with milk).  We ended up getting two hot dogs on toasted baguettes – kind of interesting but ok!

After checking out the Arc de Triomf, we walked down the the road to the Parc De La Ciutadella, Barcelona’s most central park and home of the Barcelona Zoo.  The park is really well kept and I would say it’s nicer than Retiro Park in Madrid because there’s more to see – lots of fountains and statues and Gaudi even designed a small part of it!  We skipped the zoo because the entrance fee is 16 euros for adults (I don’t want to see animals that bad!), did a circle around the park, and headed off to Gaudi’s Palau Guell, a house that belonged to wealthy industrialist Eusebi Guell and the only building Gaudi ever completed in his lifetime.  The Palau Guell is actually currently under restoration, so we could only see the basement and gift shop, but entrance was free!  Paul didn’t think it was worth the line-up, but I enjoyed it because I’ve become a big fan of Gaudi’s work on this trip.

Because we had bought a 10-ride ticket for the metro, we decided we would use up some of our metro rides after Palau Guell by taking the metro up to Placa Espanya – we had no idea what was there but it was the furthest point Northwest on our map and it looked like a park.  As it turns out, Placa Espanya is where the National Museum of Art of Catalunya is, and it also connects to Montjuic!  We decided to head straight to Montjuic and skip the art museum, and we found a path right behind the museum that connects directly to the Olympic park.  The view up here is truly magnificent, and, best of all, most of it is free!

When we finished checking out the Olympic park and stadium, we headed down the hill in the direction of the funicular/cable car.  We decided we would take whichever one we found first and, after a short walk, we found the funicular, and discovered you can use metro tickets to ride the funicular!

So, we managed to see the rest of the sights on our list as well as Montjuic, which we thought we would miss, and we used up almost all of our metro tickets.  This last day here has really ended things on a high note – hope France pulls through and keeps things going well!

Not sure why but every block in Barcelona seems to have 1 or more Farmacias (pharmacies). The odd thing is all drugs, even Tylenol (called panacetamol here) is kept behind the counter. They have probably have more pharmacies per block than Vancouver/Seattle has Starbucks! (editor’s note: Starcrack anyone?)

Drugs are considerably cheaper here than in Canada. Mainly because there is no dispensing fees and the drugs do not have brand names like Tylenol or Advil.

This morning we met up with Jill and Micah again and decided to walk Las Ramblas, a popular pedestrian street in central Barcelona, not too far from our hostel and known for its vendors, street performers, restaurants and cafes.  Walking west from our hostel, we intersected the middle of  Las Ramblas and decided to walk down towards the beach and then back up towards the city center. 

Even though it was fairly early, the street was busy with pedestrians and numerous amusing street performers.  After checking out the street performers and various pets for sale (including guinea pigs, bunny rabbits, turtles, roosters, and chicks), we headed to the Mercat de la Boqueria, a large and colorful fresh market just off of Las Ramblas.  Yesterday, we had talked about buying groceries at a fresh market across the street from the flats where we were staying and cooking lunch together before Jill and Micah headed to the airport, so we figured we might as well check out this market while we were here.

We started by stopping at a fruit vendor and getting some pineapple and strawberries that were cut and ready to eat (they even wrap it up with a little fork for you!).  It wasn’t the greatest fresh fruit we’ve ever had, but it was pretty sweet and very good value (only 1 euro for a quarter pineapple and 2 euro for a big box of strawberries). When we finished our fruit, we systematically walked aisle to aisle and perused the entire market, although decided to buy our groceries for lunch at the other market so we wouldn’t have to carry everything around while walking.  We picked up some fresh fruit drinks when we found a stand that sold them for only 1 euro (as opposed to 2 at the other stands) and then headed in the direction of the hostel.

Before going to get groceries to make lunch, we decided to get waffles with ice cream at a place Jill and Micah had been to when they first got here.  Waffles with ice cream had been on the agenda for the past two evenings, but by the time we got back from our sightseeing we were always too tired to go out again!  So, even though it was still early afternoon, we decided that if we didn’t have ice cream now, Jill and Micah wouldn’t have a chance to get it before leaving.   Since the ice cream place is right by the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia – Barcelona’s most well-known cathedral (the Sagrada Familia sometimes inaccurately comes up when talking about Barcelona’s cathedral’s, but it is not in fact a cathedral) and only about a minute away from our hostel - and none of us had really stopped to check it out, we decided to eat our ice cream on the steps and admire the neo-Gothic facade.

As we were finishing, a young guy and girl came by asking for girls that spoke English.  We weren’t sure what they wanted so we hesitated to say yes, but I felt like being helpful so I decided to tell them I speak English.  They turned out to be film students from the UK, here to complete a project and they needed to find girls to read a few “breakup” lines for them. I have no acting skills whatsoever, but I agreed to give it a try and they handed Jill and I a list of lines (such as “I’m just not ready for a serious relationship”) to choose from. I couldn’t help but laugh a little when I read the list and I asked what kind of film they were making and the guy said “it’s sort of like a self-documentary” to which I replied “that’s kind of sad” and he laughed a little and agreed that it was kind of sad.  I decided to read “You’re great, but I think we’d be better off as friends” (or something like that, I can’t remember the exact wording) and it took about 5 attempts to get me to say the line seriously enough.  I think this will be the beginning and end of my acting career

After picking up some salmon and frozen tortellini at the market by our flat (which turned out to be smaller than the Mercat de la Boqueria and most of the vendors closed early!) we headed back to cook.  We didn’t see anywhere in the market to buy olive oil and spices so we had to rely on the stuff that was in the kitchen – which resulted in two flavor choices – pepper and salt – and no olive oil, just sunflower oil.  A more pressing problem was the fact that the stove (which you have to light with a match or lighter) wouldn’t allow us to lower the heat level without shutting off the gas supply, so we (actually Micah, since he was doing the cooking) were stuck cooking on high heat.  Add in the fact that the cookware and utensils provided are really crappy (the non-stick pan had pretty much lost its teflon coating and the knives were the worst I’ve ever used) and the more Micah cooked, the more we questioned whether this was a good idea. (editor’s note: You mean eating Teflon is bad?? Oh no….what have I been doing??)

It turned out to taste pretty good, especially when you consider what we had to work with, but that was totally thanks to Micah and Jill!  It will definately be the first and last time I use a kitchen at a hostel to make a full meal

Because yesterday’s lack of planning and late start led to a very rushed visit to the Sagrada Familia before closing, we decided we would go out together again today, but with much more of a plan, especially since it was Jill and Micah’s last full day here before departing to London.

Over some takeout pizza and wine last night, we made a plan to start today by using up the combo-ticket we had purchased at the Sagrada-Familia and going to see the Gaudí House-Museum in the morning, which we found out on Google is located in Parc Güell - a garden complex designed by Gaudi and originally intended to be an elite housing site.  However, only two houses were ever completed, neither designed by Gaudi.  One of the two completed houses was purchased by Gaudi in 1906, after unsuccessfully being put up for sale as a showhome in 1904.  Gaudi and his family lived there from 1906-1926.  In 1963, the “Association of Gaudi’s Friends” purchased it and converted it into a museum.

Following the advice of the guy who worked at the hostel, we took the metro to get to Parc Güell and found our way to the park quite easily, though finding the museum took a crazy amount of effort!  The park is huge and Paul had this mistaken impression that Gaudi’s house is white and at the top of the hill so we climbed to the top via a long set of stairs, but found no museum and no white house.  Then we tried to find a way down on the left side, but were turned around by some kind of security guard who seemed to be telling us that this path was closed so we had to walk back down the stairs.  We finally ran into some other Americans on our way down who told us the museum is to the left when we got to the bottom of the stairs.  Turns out it’s a pink house and is actually named “Torre Rosa” 

After a brief tour (the house is quite small and just exhibits some interesting furniture Gaudi designed) we headed off to grab some lunch then head to the beach.  We decided that, unlike yesterday, we would just pick a place to eat quickly while on our way to the metro station and went into the first restaurant we saw that had a decent “Menu del Dia.”  This worked out much better than yesterday’s lunch and we all found the food to taste much better today, although the entree sizes were a bit small.  Paul got some roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and I got some mixed seafood in a tasty broth.  There were only two types of dessert on the menu so we decided to try one of each and ended up getting a banana bread pudding and an interesting minty lime drink.  Ultimately, I ate both desserts because Paul’s not a big fan of bread pudding and he thought the drink tasted kinda funky but I found it refreshing

We headed to the beach with the intention of catching a cable car up to Montjuic (a hill southeast of the city center that has a number of sights and attractions, most notably the Olympic Ring from when they hosted the Olympics in 1992), but when we found our way to the to the cable cars, we found out that the main cable car station was closed and we would have to catch the cable car from the second station.  Since none of us knew where that was and we were tired from walking around the park, we decided to head to the beach and lie around for the rest of the afternoon.

Although we’re all tired from two days of a lot of walking and sightseeing, these last two days have been the most enjoyable of the trip so far!  We will probably meet up with Jill and Micah again tomorrow before they head off to London and check out some of the city center.  In my opinion, Barcelona is definately better than Madrid!

This afternoon, with Jill and Micah who we befriended last night, we headed out to see the infamous Sagrada Familia – a massive Roman Catholic church designed by Spanish Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi that has been under construction in Barcelona since 1882 and will not be complete until 2026!  We decided to walk to the Sagrada Familia via Passeig de Gràcia, a large street full of expensive stores and home to a couple of other famous Gaudi buildings, such as Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, so that we could see the architecture this area is known for.  Although we all were interested in seeing the Gaudi buildings, there were long line-ups to tour both Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, so we took some pictures of the outside and kept going.

As it turned out, the walk to Sagrada Familia was a lot longer than expected!  We had headed out of the hostel late because Paul had some work to do, and by the time we got to Casa Batlló we were all getting hungry so we started looking for somewhere to eat lunch.  When we got closer to the Sagrada Familia, we found a restaurant that had a suitable menu, but when we sat down the server said he couldn’t serve us because they were closing at 4 (and it was only 3:15!).  We wandered around checking out a few other restaurants, but nothing seemed to be able to accommodate Jill’s vegetarian diet (the fact that we didn’t know the Spanish word for vegetarian didn’t help! editor’s note: google translate came up with vegetariana).  We finally settled on a place that’s sort of kiddy-corner to the Sagrada Familia because it seemed like no matter where we went the menu was the same and they didn’t really have vegetarian dishes.  Paul and I ended up getting a small paella (which was mildly better than the one we ate in Madrid) and a pork chop with egg, and Jill had to order cheese on toasted bread with french fries

The four of us left lunch feeling pretty unsatisfied and hurried across the street to get in line to enter the church.  It was already 4:45 and the Sagrada Familia closed at 6, so we started to panic a little about the time crunch.  Thankfully the rather long line-up moved quicker than expected and we were at the front within a half-hour.  We decided to buy the combo ticket for the Sagrada Familia + Gaudí House-Museum since it was only a 2 euro difference from the cost of just entering the Sagrada Familia, and the ticket for the Gaudí House-Museum could be used on a different day; although we weren’t quite sure where it was and they didn’t provide us any info!

When we got to the front entrance of the Sagrada Familia and we could see the Passion facade (West exterior) up close, I began to see why construction will take so long to complete, even in our age of technology (Gaudi’s original plan was that the building would take hundreds of years to complete but modern technology has sped that up). Gaudi’s plans for this church were amazingly intricate and to execute his vision, a large number of  architects, draftsmen, sculptors and model makers have been involved in the project.  The attention to every detail and the grandness of the entire church are simply amazing and you can feel Gaudi’s passion to build the “last great sanctuary of Christendom.” (editor’s note:…..nevermind)

Inside the church, there was another line up to pay 5 euros to take the elevator up the towers.  Because we were so short on time, Paul, Micah, and myself decided to just go see the museum behind the church and Jill waited in line to take the elevator up by herself because she really wanted to see the top.  The museum was full of interesting information about the construction, Gaudi, his colleagues, and sample models and drawings of the construction.   I probably could have spent a couple hours here but we only had about 40 minutes!  The whole experience has given me a new appreciation for Antoni Gaudi and the Art Nouveau style he is famous for.

Seeing the Sagrada Familia in person was at the top of my list of things to do on this trip and it definately did not dissappoint.  Jill said we should all come back together and see it when it’s complete and I must say, I really hope that that can happen – but next time we’ll have to time out our day better! (editor’s note: I’m coming along next time!)

When we arrived at the hostel, we were happily greeted by a staff member who spoke English (yay!).  She explained that the private rooms in which we were booked were located in a different building than the dorms/reception but they had a map with directions and it was only a block away.  We were required to pay a 50 euro damage deposit (which will be returned at the end if we follow the rules such as not letting non-guests into the building, not damaging the room, etc.) and then she asked if we wanted to join in their “Welcome Dinner” which takes place every Friday evening.  For 6 euros/person they serve you a salad, a Spanish omlette, a vegetarian pasta and wine.  We had done this at the hostel in Lisbon and it turned out quite well, so we figured we might as well sign up for this one!

We headed over to the flat where the private rooms are and were pleasantly surprised to find a nice room with an actual double bed (not just two single beds pushed together like in Porto or two terrible bunk beds like in Madrid). There are a total of 4 rooms in the flat and we share a bathroom with two toilets and two showers and a small kitchen.  Unfortunately, their free Wi-Fi is only available in the main building so we’ll have to walk over whenever we need Internet, but it’s a small price to pay for a nice private room!

At the dinner we met four people from the US, one girl from South America, two people from Spain, one person from Scotland and one person from England.  The food was decent (those of you who know Paul will be surprised to hear that he ate a completely vegetarian meal!), the wine was quite nice and we’ve quickly become friends with Jill and Micah from Philadelphia so we’ll have someone to go sightseeing with tomorrow!

Now that we have better accomodations, more helpful people and friends to sightsee with; things should definately go much better than they have been!

After the worst possible night of sleep (the dorm room turned out to be on the side of the hostel where a tonne of bars are located and the whole night I heard singing, shouting and glass breaking until 6:30 am when a drunk guy wandered around searching for his friend Pedro by continuously shouting his name for an hour) we dragged ourselves up at 8 am this morning to head to the train station to get to Barcelona (editor’s note: This sounds just like my place here in Asia!).

Our train wasn’t until 10:30 am, but we needed to validate our EuRail pass and we didn’t want to take any chances so we gave ourselves plenty of time. Before leaving Canada we had bought a 10-travel-days pass online because for non-EU residents EuRail passes are generally cheaper but they must be bought in advance, mailed to a foreign address, and then taken to be validated before you begin traveling.  It turned out that this is just a quick 5 minute process where the main ticket office puts a stamp on your pass, but finding the appropriate office and waiting in line for an agent to do this took us about 20 minutes.

When purchasing our tickets we had also made a reservation on the high-speed train from Madrid to Barcelona because most of the long distance trains require reservations.  You must pay a reservation fee on top of the ticket cost, and it is higher when you book in Canada; but again we didn’t want to take any chances for our first time traveling with our EuRail pass.  Also, while the EuRail pass is valid for either 1st or 2nd class travel, the reservation fee is a lot higher for 1st class so we opted for 2nd class.  Once we got on the train, we found that 2nd class is quite comfortable and the only difference seems to be the width of the seats.

The reservation provided us with a train number and seat number but we didn’t know which platform we would board from until about 20 minutes prior.  You basically go through security (which is really just putting your bag through a scanner and I think they are only checking for weapons, but since you don’t walk through a metal detector or any other scanning devices, it seems if you were planning to smuggle something on board you would just put it on your body) and then wait in front of a set of TV screens for a platform to show up next to your train number.

Like our first train ride to Porto, the train was smooth and efficient, departing and arriving on time.  For the first 30 minutes or so Paul watched the screen at the front of the cabin in amazement as the train hit speeds of 310 km/hr, but eventually he got bored and dozed off.  I stayed awake for most of the 3 hour train ride and have learned one thing- bring snacks and drinks on board with you!  The on board cart has very limited options and is quite pricey!

Considering the fact that a plane ride from Mardid to Barcelona is 1 hr and 15 minutes but you have to arrive an hour early and go through crazy security and you’re not allowed to bring liquids and all kinds of other stuff with you, I would sooner take a high-speed train any day!  The train ride was relaxing, I didn’t have to take anything out of my bag to go through security, and there were no delays!