15 July - Reykjavik to Barcelona

Well, as the saying goes, what a difference a day makes! Where we stepped onto the plane could not be more different from where we stepped out of it. Iceland and Spain are worlds apart.

We had an easy start to the morning, and time for a short wander around, before dragging our luggage the short distance to the BSI bus terminal at the domestic airport. It's weird that the domestic airport is only metres away from the historic centre of Reykjavik, and therefore very walkable. It means there are often aircraft flying overhead, but we honestly didn't notice them much, and they didn't interrupt our sleeping at all. 

Lovely lakeside setting 100m from the doorstep of our apartment

Lakeside sculpture - The Unknown Bureaucrat

Some of the vehicles here are rather large to deal with the road conditions (yes, I am standing)

As per normal these days, we both dozed on the bus trip. Forty minutes later, we were at the international airport (largely constructed by the US army during WWII) and then had a 3-hour wait for our flight. It was nearly an hour late taking off, but only half that late arriving. It wasn't a problem.

When we stepped off the plane, the first thing we noticed was that it was DARK. We hadn't see a night-time sky for nearly two weeks. The second thing was it was so much warmer, 30 degrees instead of the 12 degrees we'd left behind. It was lovely. Onto the Skybus and into Placa de Catalunya in the centre of Barcelona; it was only a 10-minute walk to find our hostel. It's located directly opposite the grand Palace of Catalan Music, which is a magnificent building, with a magnificent Plensa sculpture in the street outside.

The Palace of Catalan Music is the huge and well lit building on the left.
Our hostel is the green door on the ground floor on the right. 

Even arriving in the city late on the bus from the airport, the lively flavour of the place was immediately evident. Of course we have left a country where the climate is very harsh and cold for most of the year and people are therefore used to spending minimal time outside, shopping, or socialising. The opposite is true of the warmer climes in Europe. It's not really fair to compare the two, but at 11pm at night, Barcelona was heaving with people, many dining in restaurants or tapas bars, sitting outside with a cold beer or glass of wine, promenading with linked arms or generally just having a loud and fun social time. The warm temperatures, an afternoon siesta encouraging late night antics and cheap food and wine really does allow for a totally different way of life. It immediately put huge grins onto our faces. It's a very attractive lifestyle, and one that John and I were very keen to step back into.

In fact, as soon as we'd dragged our 20kg packs up the two flights of stairs to our small room (with ensuite!) in an ancient and once-grand building, we immediately decamped and retraced our steps to a gelateria we had passed. The guy behind the counter was doing a roaring trade at 11:30pm. Super delicious. We hadn't really had any dinner on our flight. FlyPlay is a basic airline, without any frills like meals, a TV screen or the like, but with really good legroom. We happily slept or read instead. A gelato didn't quite fill John up so we called into Tosca Bar next to our hostel and had a cold craft beer to top it up. Perfect!!

We hit the bed by midnight. And 'hit' is the appropriate word. As opposed to the cosy but firm beds in Iceland, with their soft fluffy duvets, here we were greeted by the typical European bed which is extremely unforgiving, and just a light sheet and bedspread. We didn't need either of the latter during the night. With a feeble aircon unit trying to cool the air, we basically just sprawled on the bed, and slept well regardless.