Spain: Day 5
March 28, 2012 05:45 PM | General
BARCELONA, Spain – Today we left Madrid for a bus ride over to Barcelona. It was a bit long because of mandatory stops placed on the bus driver. He could only log so many miles and is under strict guidelines to follow the speed limit because of heavy fines. But the ladies were sound asleep for most of the ride.
One of the stops along the way was used to get the team off the bus for some dynamic stretching and foam rolling. After days of walking around Madrid and consecutive days of games, the 30 minutes of stretching was much needed.
The rest of the travel party used that time to take a quick glimpse of Zaragoza. Zaragoza’s most famous attraction is the Basilica–Cathedral of Our Lady of the Pillar. There were also several hundred love padlocks, when foreign visitors attach padlocks to its bridges as a sign of undying love, on a nearby bridge.
After a stop for lunch, we finally approached Barcelona…just in time for rush hour traffic. The ladies were passing the time by playing “zumie zumie,” one of several made-up games this afternoon.
Daniel, our trip’s host this week, pointed out several sites along the way to the hotel. You could see right away that Barcelona is much more modernized than Madrid. Its population is roughly four and a half million and it has natural borders of mountains and water.
Catalan and Spanish are both official languages here. The Catalan dialect has a heavy French influence. For example, instead of using gracias, they say merci for thank you.
The most popular transportation around the city is a motorcycle. There is a 10-mile stretch of bike lanes on the downtown streets for motorcycles and bicycles. And we saw plenty of mopeds during our ride to our hotel.
We checked in to our hotel and quickly dropped our bags off. It was a two-minute walk to dinner. The team enjoyed a nice dinner of seafood pasta salad, roast beef in a salisbury and mushroom sauce, and ice cream. The restaurant also had the AC Milan-FC Barcelona game on the big screen for customers to watch.
A long travel day is complete and a three-hour walking tour awaits the team in late morning.
Don't forget to check out photos from women's soccer's trip to Spain at Facebook.com/wvuwomenssoccer and be sure to click the "Like" button while you are there.
One of the stops along the way was used to get the team off the bus for some dynamic stretching and foam rolling. After days of walking around Madrid and consecutive days of games, the 30 minutes of stretching was much needed.
The rest of the travel party used that time to take a quick glimpse of Zaragoza. Zaragoza’s most famous attraction is the Basilica–Cathedral of Our Lady of the Pillar. There were also several hundred love padlocks, when foreign visitors attach padlocks to its bridges as a sign of undying love, on a nearby bridge.
After a stop for lunch, we finally approached Barcelona…just in time for rush hour traffic. The ladies were passing the time by playing “zumie zumie,” one of several made-up games this afternoon.
Daniel, our trip’s host this week, pointed out several sites along the way to the hotel. You could see right away that Barcelona is much more modernized than Madrid. Its population is roughly four and a half million and it has natural borders of mountains and water.
Catalan and Spanish are both official languages here. The Catalan dialect has a heavy French influence. For example, instead of using gracias, they say merci for thank you.
The most popular transportation around the city is a motorcycle. There is a 10-mile stretch of bike lanes on the downtown streets for motorcycles and bicycles. And we saw plenty of mopeds during our ride to our hotel.
We checked in to our hotel and quickly dropped our bags off. It was a two-minute walk to dinner. The team enjoyed a nice dinner of seafood pasta salad, roast beef in a salisbury and mushroom sauce, and ice cream. The restaurant also had the AC Milan-FC Barcelona game on the big screen for customers to watch.
A long travel day is complete and a three-hour walking tour awaits the team in late morning.
Don't forget to check out photos from women's soccer's trip to Spain at Facebook.com/wvuwomenssoccer and be sure to click the "Like" button while you are there.
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