Dave's Blog

After Barcelona my next stop was London from 7th to 9th July. The original plan was to see Michael Jackson but that obviously wasn’t happening anymore. I decided to keep the flights anyway because I wouldn’t get a refund on them and thought I might as well make the most of the trip.

I realised that Derren Brown was on the West End run of his most recent tour so booked a ticket to see that. A separate post will be covering the show.

Whenever I landed there was very heavy rain, but it had thankfully cleared up by the time I reached my hostel. I was staying directly on Piccadilly Circus so went for a walk around the area once I was sorted. I walked to Leicester Square and seen it was setup for the world premiere of the new Harry Potter film so decided to hang about for it because I hadn’t been to a premiere before. Unfortunately the rain came on again but this time even heavier and was joined by thunder and lightning. I had a pretty good spot outside the cinema but quit once the rain started heavy because I wasn’t too bothered if I missed it, I’m not exactly a fan of the series.

I went for food to get out of the rain and once I was finished the rain had stopped and I could still hear shouting around Leicester Square so I thought I would check it out once more and actually arrived just in time to see Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson arrive, I had just missed Rupert Grint. The crowd were going crazy for them, I seen a girl running around and screaming ‘Oh my God, oh my God, I seen Rupert!’ and everybody started chanting ‘Harry, Harry, Harry’ when Daniel Radcliffe appeared. Whenever I was walking around Leicester Square again later that night the fans were literally ripping the place apart to try and get some of the decorations that had been put up for the premiere!

I remembered that ‘Thriller Live’, the West End show made up of Michael Jackson hits, was running so I went to their box office on the off chance of being able to get a ticket as a consolation for not seeing the real thing. This was the night of his memorial concert so I thought it might be completely sold out, but I managed to get one ticket for myself in a really good spot. The show was brilliant and at some points you would’ve thought it was really Jackson on stage!

The next day I went sightseeing, walking quite a bit from one side of London to the other. I started at Piccadilly Circus and walked to Trafalgar Square, Downing Street, Parliament (where I got into the House of Commons to see some of the debates), London Eye, Oxo Tower, the Globe, I went around HMS Belfast and finally around Tower Bridge. Some of these sites I had seen before, but it was great to be able to spend time at the ones I hadn’t. There were some great views of London from the walkways at the top of Tower Bridge and I also got to see the bridge opening for a boat. After this I went to the Derren Brown show.

On my final day I went around some of the shops to pass my time before catching the flight home. I went to Hamleys and Harrods where I wished I was a child again with very rich parents. Some of the things you can get for kids these days is unbelievable such as this fully functional car costing £20,000:

It was a great few days, but the travelling wasn’t stopping there, the next trip was only 3 days away: America!

Below are my photos from the trip:

Following on from the last post about Barcelona, I will now write about the main reason I was there: to see U2. I decided to see them in Barcelona because I wasn’t going to be able to see them play Dublin as I’m in America. I figured I might as well take the opportunity while I had it and see them in another country. Barcelona was the first night of the tour and they would be playing the Nou Camp, this was bound to be an awesome show and they certainly didn’t disappoint!

Read on for more about it with pictures, including the newspaper article I ended up in!

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Over the next couple of weeks I will be writing about my travelling over the summer. I am starting off with the first trip, Barcelona. I was there from 29th June to 1st July. The primary reason for going over was to see U2 in the Nou Camp as I was going to miss them in Dublin since they’re playing there while I’m in America. I will be covering the U2 gig in separate post.

I decided that I might as well make the most of the trip so booked the extra few days to see about Barcelona. I had previously only been there for a day trip while staying in Spain so thought this was the perfect opportunity to see more of the city.

As expected, the weather was very good, much better than back in Dublin! Although it was nice to get the good weather, it was sometimes hard to take the heat and I was a little bit glad to get home again to the cool temperatures.

I had a fantastic time and seen plenty of sights. I picked out a couple of places I wanted to see and then just took it from there. After getting to a place I would look around for other interesting things to see and would just keep walking until I had covered everything in the area.

My favourite sights were those associated with Antoni Gaudí. The architecture around the city designed by him was fantastic to see. Out of everything, I enjoyed walking around Park Güell most, the park overlooking Barcelona which was designed by Gaudí. I was able to spend a couple of hours walking around the park.

I stayed in a hostel called Centric Point. This was a great hostel in a very central location, directly in the middle of Passeig de Gràcia and only about a 10 minute walk from La Rambla. It was very comfortable and everybody was friendly, I would definitely recommend this as a place to stay if you are looking for cheap accommodation in Barcelona!

Below are my photos from the trip (there are a lot, I just couldn’t stop taking pictures of the amazing sights!):