Barcelona. Walking in the city.

There are many different ways to move in Barcelona. At first, three types of transport meet the tourists arriving in the city, and all three of them conveniently coincide at one point, at the Square of Catalonia: taxi, airport shuttle-bus and tourist-buses with sight-seeing tour.

Black-and-yellow taxi of Barcelona are as well recognizable as their New-Your counterparts.

One can do the sight-seeing not only by tourist-bus, but by bicycle. You can go on a guided tour in the center and find out al lot of interesting things on the way.

The most interesting tourist transport found on the streets was this mini-automobile with personal guide.

Younger citizens use the city’s hilly relief in their own way. I assume, descending the streets of Barcelona on the skateboard with the wind blowing in your face is as nice as riding a snowboard in Alps.

Locals move through the city on scooters and bicycles. Authorities’ program for traffic relief, in my opinion, is very successful. I didn’t see any traffic jams, and in the morning all bicycle parking lots were empty which is saying something about sound minds in a sound bodies of people living in Barcelona.

You can see right away – they train kids to this since very early age.

During the school break most of the boys play active outdoor games: football or badminton – the way it should be.

They even do the dog-walking on bikes.

After riding a bike, dog-walking is second most favorite pastime of the citizens. Sometimes dogs are being walked in a pack. By the young and the old.

What surprised me most in the citizens’ lifestyle was the large number of the male part of the city’s population idly sitting on the benches any time of the day. The following pictures were taken within couple of hundreds of meters of one boulevard. And in any other part of the city, where there were places to sit on, you could see exactly the same picture.

And finding a spot for a tired pedestrian to take a rest is not hard.

You can even sit on the stairs if you want.

Or on the airgrid of the metro. It’s clean!

And, by the way,  you can drink waster from numerous fountains (I, of course, didn’t try it, but I saw other people doing it, and they walked away all right, sane and safe).

On the last day I finally got to La Rambla. I has passed it by many times, but crowds of people had scared me away each time and turned me to other less crowded places. Well, alive statutes, so what. Only the face-off between the Cat-Woman and the dog managed to catch my attention.

When I reached the turn to Royal square, I gladly made a turn there, and sfterwads wandered along small parallel back streets. They concealed many interesting views. As does any street of Barcelona.

Walking in this city is pure delight.

And yes, Barcelona for me is the city of love, and [other things just come after that].