Spain reloaded 2: GoCars!

Posted by holly on Jun 24, 2009 in Blog, BlogSherpa, Europe

Started this day off with a tour of the Petite Palace Opera Gardens hotel right on Las Ramblas. Highly recommended, the rooms are good, the hotel modern and the location could only be beat by the hotel I was staying in. Then came the part I had been really looking forwards to, the half-day city tour. I love these things, and try to do one in every new city I visit, as it gives you a great overview of the attractions, and your guide fills in all the cool local tidbits of information you’d never get from a guidebook.

Headed right up to Park Guell, Gaudi’s acid-trip wonderland, as did every other tourist known to man, apparently. A highschooler tourist propositioned on of my coworkers by waving a hundred euro note at her and promising he was good. Damn, they learn young in Europe! She didn’t take him up on his offer, murmurring something about finding out what legal age was in his country as she ran away. It was hysterical. The park, aside from having some of the best photo ops in the city, also had great souvenir shopping.

Let’s just get this out there: I love tacky souvenirs. I am taking steps to quell this addicion, but in the meantime, please enjoy your Paella fridge magnet.

Onwards to La Segrada Famillia, where we didn’t get close to it, but our guide did take us to the perfect position for us all to get the stereotypcal ”me and my cathedral” photo. Then we went into the Barri Gothic, which, because out hotel wasn’t that far away, we’d all walked through every night, and got a picure with another cathedral.

The last stop was Montjuic mountain and the Spanish Village, which had been the Spanish pavillion during the ‘92 olympics and is a recreation of a traditional (say it with me now) village. Plus, they have free bathrooms. Did some more good souvenir shopping, and my roomate spent over EUR$200 on Sangria and olive oil to give as gifts for people back home. She then had to carry the bags around for the rest of the tour. I need to warn everyone, olive oil is not a good idea to bring back home, as it can be classified as a “dangerous good” and banned. Please check with your airline so you can avoid pouring good money and oil down the drain as she had to!

Woo hoo! Now we got to finish up our trip to Barcelona with free time. If you’re ever in the city and want to explore, but don’t want to take a tour (and are ready to giggle like an idiot for a few hours), you have to take a GoCar (www.gocartours.com). This was wet-your pants fun, and it still makes me laugh just thinking about it. You get into this tiny three-wheeled car-meets-moped, do your crash helmet, plug in your GPS and go. As long as you follow one of four pre-determined routes, the car talks to you as you go, telling you about the sights as you pass them, and even telling you when you need to change lanes. As the car said, “trust me, I’m a local”! Taxi drivers were laughing at us as they blew past, and behind La Segrada Famillia a group of Japanese tourists ran out into the crosswalk to take our pictures. Hey, I’m going to be big in Japan!

But seriously, if you can GoCar, do it. It’s worth every penny. And if you’re lucky enough, you too can wear the helmet with the bunny ears on it.