Wonderful Manresa...

I know it's been a while since I promised photos and more info about the trips I went on for Easter, but I have been very busy lately (more trips, exams, St. Jordi (photos may be coming...), the beach, shopping, alien abduction, you know, the usual). However, I have now found the time in my busy schedule to share some fantastic photos and captivating information about my life with you.

Easter Friday (Langfredag, evt. 6. april) a friend of Alma had planned a trip to a place called Cardona. Don't really know exactly why, but it was supposed to be interesting, so when I was invited to come along I thought - why not? (the alternative was spending the day in the library reading for my exams). The girl who had planned everything decided not to go, because the weather had been horrible and the forcast was not really positive. Having learnt not to trust forcasts and in an attempt to be optimistic (and did I mention that not going meant spending the day studing for exams?) we (myself, Alma, her boyfriend and three of their friends) went without her, hoping that the information we didn't have about busses, trains etc. would be easily available and the weather gods would take the day off.

Looking at the view...

Manresas gothic church - La Seu (looming thunderclouds in the background)

To get to Cardona you have to take the train from BCN to Manresa and then switch to the bus. We easily found a train to Manresa, got off at the station, checked out the church and the rather depressing view from the church, and then headed for the bus station. At the station we were told that the next bus (actually, the only bus) to Cardona was not until 16:00. The next (and only) bus from Cardona back to Manresa would be at 15:00... Our second option was going to Vic, an other city not very far from BCN, but the only bus was at 19:00 (even without return tickets BCN-Manresa, which meant we had to go back to Manresa before returning to BCN, this was not really a good idea). Conclusion: We were stuck in Wonderful Manresa.

Central Manresa

We decided to get out of the station area, and check out if the rest of the city was actually as uninteresting as the parts we had already seen. After a lot of walking we ended up on a decent plaça and took a break under the pink trees until the sky started to rumble and made us think it was time to get out of there.

Back at the train station we found out that there was no other train for a while, so we decided to check ou the Bridge (according to my ever trustworthy LonelyPlanetGuide (...) one of the two (the other is the church) tourist attractions in Manresa). The bridge was, well, a bridge. A nice one though.

The Bridge (which probably has some other name as well, that I don't know...)

With different weather and late in the day, the view from the train was not as spectacular as on the way to Manresa, but it was still interesting. I haven't really travelled much in Catalunya, and it was nice to see some of the countryside as well.

Feeling not quite ready to go home, we got off the train about 20 km outside BCN, in a city called Sabadell (about 180 000 inhabitants). There wasn't much going on, but we caught the last part of the Easter Friday mass, took pictures of the ajuntament building (kommunehuset) and bought ice cream (which always makes any day a bit better!)

Ajuntament de Sabadell

Ice cream and the Manresa Rambla

I guess the trip didn't really turn out the way we expected, but at least the weather was nice for a change (the thunderclouds never became anything more than clouds), there was good company and ice cream, so all in all, it was a nice day!

Waiting for the train in Sabadell