We opted to begin after the French portion at the city of Pamplona in Spain (still a whopping 700 km!) due to complications with entering multiple foreign countries as we are both American. However, I'll talk more about our camino adventures in future posts — for now, I'm sharing snaps from the first two days that we stayed in Barcelona before taking a train to launch off our 30-day-long backpacking trek across Spain.

Barcelona is the first city in Europe I had ever seen. You see, I'd always wanted to go visit, but it's quite a ways from the U.S. — airplane tickets are not cheap, nor are traveling expenses in general. Now that I had some savings built up (mainly from crypto gains) I found it a perfect time to finally see this amazing part of the world with one of my friends. Barcelona definitely did not disappoint!

I was amazed at the chill yet lively and regal vibe of this unique city as I wandered about the streets. I was also awed by its architecture - much of it a testament to the creative genius of one of its finest architects, Antoni Gaudí — whose most remarkable brainchild, the Sagrada Família Cathedral, is one of the most amazing religious buildings in the world. However, this will have to be a teaser, as I will be sharing the first pictures of the exterior of that building in a coming post.

We stayed in a hostel near the gothic quarter. That labyrinth of historical and modern especially has a wondrous effect on the psyche as one meanders through those narrow, unpredictable alley paths through multistory buildings to the chatter of Catalonians, the metallic groanings of city, and the faint squawking of gulls — tantalizing one to find and explore the nearby coast (which, we certainly did, and it was highly worth the search!)