Getting around is easy

We've been walking around everywhere, averaging 4-5 miles a day. It's a good way to see the various parts of the city, and burns off some of the calories we've been taking in from all the good meals. When we eventually move here, we don't plan to have a car -- no, more than that: one of the reasons to live in Barcelona because you absolutely don't need a car; we do not want a car (how very unamerican).

When we went to London, we walked a little over 10 minutes to get the Aerobus to the airport; it was €20 for the two of us, round trip.  It even had wifi and USB charging stations. Painless.

One of the places we're looking at is a couple blocks from a major international bus station. We could walk out our future door, and in 5 minutes be on a bus to Madrid, Paris, or Casablanca.

I haven't looked at the schedules to see how long that would take, but it does sound exotic and easy. It may be easier for us to catch a flight from the US to Girona, then the bus to the station, rather than flying into Barcelona. Options, options.

The flat we're looking at is also an easy walk, past the Arc de Triomf

to the França train station. We could be in Paris in 6 1/2 hours, or on the high speed train just 3 hours. That's a lot more fun than the living hell that is Ryan Air and airport security theater.

We can take ferries from the Barcelona port to the Balearic islands, to Italy, or even Sardinia and Morocco. Yeah, it's an overnight sail, but consider it a floating hotel, or a cruise across the Med.

Much more mundane -- and useful day-to-day -- is the city transport.

We took the Metro across town, from Tetuan to Parallel.  Well, we tried to. There's track work and our train only went two stops before turning around. I didn't even notice it until almost too late. When we got out to transfer, we saw the big signs mentioning the construction and closures, and they should end next week. Unfortunately, the transfer at Plaça de Gracia from Purple to Green line was a long walk, felt like 10 minutes underground in stifling heat; I don't know if this is normal or part of construction but it makes a hell of a transfer -- for now I'm chalking it up to construction or our ignorance.

Since we'll be here a while, we got a bunch of tickets. They were surprisingly reasonable: a batch of 10 trips for only €10; that's well under the price we pay in DC.  The trains are good and have helpful displays of arrival times. It's an extensive network that we'll use a lot. Definitely a bargain.

We haven't taken buses yet, but we ride 'em all the time in DC. I believe our Metro tickets work just fine on them, and they're all over the city -- at least outside the old part, the Ciutat Vella. We should find a circulator route or a couple big connecting lines that take us on a loop throughout the city, our own personal chauffeur. If it's also €1 per ride, it's cheap.

Barcelona's got hills and from our roof deck, we can see two different cable cars. I'm gonna steal a photo from another site, because now I know that I can see both stages, with our view of the center tower blocked by a big building.

There's also a funicular or three.  We were on one of the cable cars last visit and the views were outstanding.  Definitely need to give them all a go this time.