Barcelona Segway Glides

Catalan Xmas traditions

2009-12-06T01:39:00.000-08:00

In Catalunya we have two important Xmas traditions. The Tió and the Caganer.

The Tió

The Tió is a wood log that gets its name from the latin "tea". It represents the wood burning on the fireplace that warms the house and protect it from the elements. It has evolved to this magical being that has to be fed for about a week before Xmas and then on Xmas day, by singing a song and beating it with a stick it will "shit" presents.

The "caganer"

The "caganer" is a figure of of a farmer of shepherd with the tipical clothes of the XVI to XVIII centuries, with the trousers down and shitting.

This is just another figure from the imagery of those centuries when the guilds are in its maximum splendor with what they call the "rajoles dels oficis" - depictions of the diferents crafts. During the baroque period, rural scenes were incorpored to the Christmas cribs and the "caganer" figure was incorpored as a realistic symbol of fertilisation of the fields and better crops.

There is a marble relieve from the XVIII century called "The Virgin and the Mountain of Montserrat" that depicts the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus and the mouuntains of Montserrat with its paths alive with characters, and in a little corner a "caganer" is visible.

To have a "caganer" on the Christmas Crib brings good luck and good crops, it is a very popular tradition in Catalunya but also in other places of Spain and Portugal.

Nowadays it has become popular to make the figure of the "caganer" as famous people, like politicians, athletes or artists

Info taken from here

Patatas bravas at Tomàs

2009-12-06T01:14:00.001-08:00

You can have patatas bravas in many places of Barcelona, but my alltime favourite by far is Bar Tomàs. The patatas bravas and patatas with allioli are simply amazing....

Now, what are patatas bravas and patatas with allioli?

Patatas bravas are deep fried potatoes with a spicy sauce, which can contain, or not, tomato, red peppers, mayonnaise....

Patatas with allioli are the same patatas but it this case with allioli. Allioli is mayonnaise with fresh garlic. It is delicious but unfortunately it also means that your breath will stink quite a lot :)

If you have the patatas bravas at Tomàs, they are made with allioli AND the bravas sauce, which makes them too spicy to me, call me sissy if you want. So I basically stay with the patatas with allioli.

You can find more info of Tomàs at tripadvisor.

This is a link to an article that the Wall Street Journal did on Bar Tomàs

Bar Tomàs general info:

* Address: Major de Sarrià, 49
* Phone: 932031077
* Opening times: from 12 to 16 and from 18 to 22 (They close on Wednesdays)
* Closest train station: Sarrià

My friend David enjoying some patatas with allioli :)

Segways and cinema

2009-10-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

Before starting the segway tour business almost 5 years ago, I used to work at a movies distribuiton company called Manga Films. It was one of the best jobs ever, watching movies, making DVDs, meeting actors, actresses, directors, atending to festivals.... More a movie fan like me there is no better way to earn your money.

Luckily, five years after I still keep many of the friends I made during those years at Manga Films, that allows me to get to some movie premiers, get a few free DVDs and attend to the Sitges Film Festival , for me, the best festival ever.

A few months ago, I took a couple of indian gentleman on a segway tour, and while we had a few tapas (they were very hungry) at El Vaso de Oro one of them, Ashvin told me that he was an oscar nominated movie director that had just finished his first full lenght feature. The movie is called The forest and being a horror/thriller movie I told him to contact the festival, he was also directed to the festival by other people. A few weeks ago, while I was checking the movie list for the festival I saw that The Forest was to be presented at the festival, so I was very happy for Ashvin, and then one night, while at the festival I met Ashvin again at the festival, it was a very funny situation, we met doing a Segway tour and we met again while he was presenting is movie at the festival.

This is not the only movie director I met this year at the festival. Back in 2002 Manga Films distributed Vincenzo Natali's last movie, Cypher. He is quite known in the cinema world for his movie Cube. I was able to spend a few hours with Vincezo and had a great time with him. This year festival Vincenzo was coming to present his new film Splice, and I tried to contact him at his old e-mail address that unfortunately did not work. Luckily for me we met at the hotel lobby and we recognised each other, I helped him with his catalan speech to present the movie and also invited him to a segway tour around the city. He agreed and here are two of the pictures we took that day.

I had a great time showing them the city and learning lots about movies, I really hope to see them soon, hopefully Vincenzo will make another movie and present it at Sitges!

We are in the news again :)

2009-10-04T23:14:00.000-07:00

Just in a local newspaper, but hey, its free :) A little interview to me in catalan of a Sabadell (my city) newspaper.

You can read the interview here

WE are in the news!

2009-08-31T02:17:00.000-07:00

We appear today in a small article in El Periódico de Catalunya. It just talks about what I do and how it all started. It is in spanish, but if you want to have a look at it you can do so here

Here are three pictures that did not make it to the final article taken by Andrea Bosch.

Night tour

2009-08-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

We did a night tour the other day, we finished at 10pm which gave us the oportunity the enjoy the city in a different way. I was pleasantly surprised by the night view of the city, it had been a long time since I had seen it...

A very cool article on Barcelona Segway Glides

2009-08-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

This was printed in the July 2008 Easy Jet Magazine. I think it is very cool. We had lots of fun with the segway that day :) The pictures were taken another day with a handsome model (I was not considered photogenic enough ha ha) but you can find two of the pictures we took that thay:

The ancient cyclist in bright lycra and crazy-eye sunglasses

Me trying to look cool for the picture (and failing miserably)

The only problem is that the the website they give is no longer mine and now post to my competitors...

The safest Segways in Barcelona

2009-08-08T04:10:00.000-07:00

Here is why our segways are safest than any other company in Barcelona and probably in the world. We got them blessed by Saint Christopher, patron of travelers and drivers. We cannot have any falls now!!

Big thanks to Mary and Jarry for uploading the video to youtube!

Esta es la razón por la cual nuestros segways son los más seguros de la ciudad y probablemente del mundo entero. Están bendecidos por San Cristóbal, patrón de los viajeros y conductores. Ya nunca más tendremos caídas!!!

Muchísimas gracias a Mary y Jerry por subir el vídeo a youtube!

Interesting things to do in Barcelona

2009-08-05T07:15:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to a page with a lot of interesting things to do in Barcelona, mostly restaurants, bars, museums, shops.... Its from 2007 but I believe it has lots of interesting places.

http://mocoloco.com/archives/004192.php

MoCo Loco is the Modern & Contemporary Design Blog

A big segway group

2009-08-05T06:51:00.001-07:00

A few days ago we did a tour for about 20 people with our friends of Dinamic Solutions, I think everybody had quite a lot of fun :)

As usual all pictures on our flickr gallery :)

Hace unos días hicimos un tour en segway para unas 20 personas junto a nuestros amigos de Dinamic Solutions. Creo que la salida fué un éxito y que todo el mundo disfrutó bastante :)

Como siempre, las fotos están disponibles en nuestra galeria de flickr

Crazy video from Trampstamp Studios

2009-07-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

These guys came to do a segway tour with us a couple of years ago. They had quite a lot of fun on the segways and also made a little video with a segway accident included :)

Here is the video:

We are listed in Tripadvisor

2009-07-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

We are very happy because we are now listed Tripadvisor.

We will include a link on our website to encourage our customers to leave a review.

Check Tripadvisor if you are going on a trip somewhere, I am sure you will find plenty of information and reviews on what to do where you are going.

If you already have been doing a segway tour with us and want to leave a review just click the following link:

Review Barcelona Segway Glides on TripAdvisor

A very very interesting post if you are visting Barcelona

2009-07-22T14:27:00.000-07:00

This blog is maintained by David Brydon and he offers very interesting things about Barcelona, from things to do, to places to see, to scams that you can suffer. I highly recommend you taking a look at it. Even I am learning a lot about the city :)

You can visit it here.

Barcelona Segway Glides on the catalan TV

2009-07-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

Back in 2006 we were featured in a tv program for the Catalan Tv. Here is the video and you can see me from minute 8 and 20 seconds. It is in catalan but I think that not much is needed to understand how a segway works.

You can see the video here

En el año 2006 salimos en un programa de TV3 llamado On anem? Aquí teneis el vídeo en el que los segways salen a partir del minuto 8 y 20 segundos. Está en catalán pero no creo que sea complicado entender la explicación de como funciona el segway.

Podeis ver el vídeo aquí

A youtube video of our tours from 2006

2009-07-21T09:51:00.001-07:00

I just found this very cool video shot and edited by our customers. I think it really is very nice.

You can watch it here

Acabo de encontrar este vídeo que fué grabado y editado por los clientes. A mi me gusta mucho.

Podeis verlo aquí

Added a few more pictures on Flickr

2009-07-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

We've done quite a few tours this days, this is high season for us. I got sunburned (again) and had lots of fun meeting new people and segwaying around the city.

I just uploaded som of the pictures I have taken during some of this tours.

Estamos en temporada alta, por lo que estamos haciendo bastantes tours estos días. Me he quemado los brazos (otra vez) pero me lo he pasado muy bien conociendo gente nueva y deslizandome por la ciudad con el segway.

Acabo de subir algunas de las fotos que he tomado estos días durante los tours.

Another segway tour with "surprise"

2009-07-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

I had a lot of fun today with two american and two english guys today, one of these days in which I realise I have on the best jobs in the world. We where also surprised by a copycat of the naked man, the guy I wrote a post about a few days ago :)

You can see a picture of the guy here if you dare :)

The rest of the pictures can be found here as usual.

Hoy me lo he pasado muy bien con dos chavales americanos y dos chavales ingleses, nos hemos reído un montón y ha sido uno de estos días en los que me doy cuenta de que tengo el mejor trabajo del mundo. Además nos sorprendió un imitador del hombre desnudo :)

Si os atreveis podeis ver la foto aquí

El resto de las fotos están aquí

People using pictures that they do not own

2009-07-04T13:33:00.000-07:00

I just realised something about another of the pictures that other segway tour company is using without permission. Here is the original one, that I took myself. These three lovely girls are the girls from Project My World, they went around the world meeting people and having fun and they made a TV program out of it. One of their first stops was Barcelona back in 2007 and they came to do a Segway tour with me.

Now, this is the picture that the other guys are using in their homepage:

Now, not only they are using my picture that they also modified the the segway bag so my company name cannot be read!!!! Shame on you guys.

Now, as a last thing if you check this link it will take you to a youtube video of a recap of the first season of Project My World, if you check the video at minute 3:07 you will see me sharing the segway with one of the ladies. Its only one second but the guy with the blue shirt is me.

Also, this was 2007, these guys started in 2008...

Segway Authorised tours

2009-07-04T08:10:00.000-07:00

Segway.com has a list of all segway authorised tours in the world in here, you will see that there is no authorised segway tour in Spain, so it is fun to see that another segway tour company in Barcelona are advertising themselves as the only Segway Authorised Tour.

To be an Authorised Segway Tour you have to sign a document with Segway where you have to abide certain rules, one of them being the use of helmets in your publicity or website. It is fun to see, again, that the same company say in its website that they are an authorised tour because they only show people with helmets on the website, you will have trouble finding people with helmets there.

I have no intention at the moment to use helmets, except if somebody specifically ask me to use them (I do have helmets). So I cannot be a Segway Authorised Tour.

But at least I do not claim to have a certification I do not have.

Also, this company that has only been in Barcelona for a year, tell people to be careful with unofficial practices. As of june 2009 the only two companies in Barcelona with authorisation from the city hall to do Segway tours in Barcelona were Barcelona Segway Glides and Barcelona Segway Fun.

As a last proof of how this people do things check this foto and the one underneath:

The photo was taken by Simon Kirrane back in 2005 and you can see four people in it, the guy in the left is me and you can also see the name of my company on the segways bags. Now the second picture is a screen capture of the home page of another segway tour company in Barcelona who very conveniently cut the picture to left me out. I have plenty more pictures that this guys are using on their website without permission, I will post some more later.

Fotos from last saturday

2009-06-30T05:35:00.000-07:00

Michal and Eyal where very kind to send me 3 pictures they took during our tour last saturday. We had a great time.

Thanks for the pictures!

Michal y Eyal fueron me han enviado tres fotos que tomaron durante el tour que hicimos el sábado pasado. Nos lo pasamos muy bien!

Gracias por las fotos!

Panoramic photo from the olympic harbour

2009-06-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

I was playing with my iphone and took this panoramic view of the harbour. There were many pictures put all together by a small iphone programme named autostitch.

You can see it full size here

Jugando con el iphone saque unas cuantas fotos del puerto olímpico que luego junté en esta foto panorámica con un pequeño programa para el iphone llamado autostitch.

Podes ver la foto a tamaño completo aquí

Barcelona Segway tour pictures on a map

2009-06-24T16:49:00.000-07:00

Now, if you read my previous post you will see a map of Barcelona with 400,000 beautiful pictures of Barcelona. What I offer here is another map of Barcelona with pictures, only about 200 and of dubios artistic qualities, that show where we have been with the segways. It is also a way to get an idea of what you will see if you come to do a segway tour with us. Of course the pictures cannot tell you anything of the wonderful guide (me) that will make the experience much more enjoyable :)

Link to the map here

Si habeis leído el post anterior, habreis visto un mapa en flickr con mas de 400.000 fotos de Barcelona. Lo que yo os ofrezco en este post es otro mapa de Barcelona con fotos, unas 200 que probablemente no tienen ningún tipo de calidad artística, y que enseñan los sitios en los que hemos estado con los segways. Es una forma de ver por donde podreis ir si venís a hacer un tour con nosotros. De todas formas la poca calidad de las imágenes no pueden reflejar lo bien que os lo pasareis con el fantástico guía (yo) que hará que todo sea mucho más divertido :)

Aquí teneis el link del mapa

A cool way to see sights of Barcelona

2009-06-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to get my pictures geotagged in flickr so people can see on a map where the pictures where taken. By chance I went to this map of Barcelona with some very beautiful pictures that put mine to shame...

You can see the map here

By the way, there are over 400,000 pictures...

Mientras intentaba poner mis fotos en un mapa de Barcelona en flickr he encontrado este mapa de la ciudad con algunas fotos muy espectaculares. Después de ver estas fotos me da verguenza poner mis fotos en internet...

Podeis ver el mapa aquí

Por cierto, solamente hay unas 400.000 fotos....

One of the crazy sights of Barcelona

2009-06-23T16:36:00.000-07:00

If you come to Barcelona during this time of the year, it is just possible that you meet with the naked man, he basically walks naked around the city, only covered by his tattoos.

If you are willing to see him in more detail here is the hires picture

Si os pasais por Barcelona en verano es muy posible que veais al hombre desnudo, un hombre que se dedica a pasear desnudo por la ciudad, solo cubierto por sus tatuajes.

Si teneis curiosidad para verlo más detalladamente, aquí teneis la foto en alta resolución

Some friends from Belgium

2009-06-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

I had a great time yesterday afternoon, 6 very cool guys from Belgium came to do our segway tour. We where lucky because it was rainy in the morning, but the afternoon was sunny.

Here you can see some of the pictures

Me lo pasé muy bien ayer por la tarde, 6 chicos Belgas muy simpáticos vinieron a hacer el tour. Por suerte el tiempo se despejó y tuvimos un tiempo espléndido, ya que la mañana fué un poco lluviosa.

Aquí podeis ver algunas de las fotos

A little escapade to Montjuïc Castle

2009-06-18T04:54:00.000-07:00

A few days ago we went up to the mountaint of Montjuïc, the view from up there is stunning. We took some pictures.

Hace unos días nos escapamos hasta el castillo de Montjuïc las vistas son impresionantes.

More pictures on our flickr account

2009-06-15T04:04:00.000-07:00

I just uploaded the pictures of the last tours we've done these last days.

You can check them here

Acabo de subir las fotos de los tours de los últimos dias.

Puedes verlas aquí

Another review from 2005

2009-06-09T09:09:00.000-07:00

The guys at Saltando.net came to do a segway tour back in october 2005, back then there was only Barcelona Glides and Madsegs in the whole of Spain.

You can see their review here

La gente de Saltando.net vinieron a hacer un tour con nosotros en octubre de 2005, por aquellos entonces, en toda España, solamente dábamos tours en segway Barcelona Glides y Madsegs.

Podeis ver su post sobre la salida aquí

Uploaded some pictures of last saturday tour.

2009-06-05T05:53:00.000-07:00

We had another amazing sunny saturday and we had quite a lot of fun with the segways. I uploaded the pictures in our flickr account.

You can see them here

Tuvimos otro fantástico y soleado domingo y nos lo pasamos en grando con los segways.

Tomamos algunas fotos que se pueden ver aquí

Our new website goes live today!!!

2009-06-02T05:15:00.001-07:00

Today we are changing to the new website... It is possible that there are small problems with it during the next few days...

You can visit it here

Hoy hemos cambiado a la nueva versión de nuestra web. Es posible que haya pequeños problemas durante los próximos días...

Podeis visitar nuestra web aquí

Some good opinions of our tours :)

2009-05-29T13:56:00.000-07:00

Two years ago one of the Disney ships visited the mediterranean and we had quite a lot of customers from the ships. They shared their experiences and recommended us on the blog. I am very proud of the commentaries about my work. If you are interested on knowing what they said about me, you can check it here:

www.disboards.com
Click here to read Mary Jo, Nick and Kelly blog on the segway tour

Another fine sunny day, another fun segway tour :)

2009-05-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

Today it was a fine day, the sun was shining and the company was wonderful, we went all the way to the olympic harbour where we practiced the "titanic" as you can see on the picture...

By the way, my nose got a bit sunburned... bring sunblock if you are coming to Barcelona!

One of the oldest reviews of our tours in the internet

2009-05-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

The guys from microsiervos came to do a segway tour with us back in June 2005. They posted a quite long and very interesting post on their experiences. You can check it here (in spanish):

Visita a Barcelona en Segway

Somebody is talking about us :)

2009-05-26T14:11:00.000-07:00

Hey, I just found this blog from Javier, he and Núria came to do a segway tour with us and they talk about their experience. In spanish:

http://lavidaenelcampito.blogspot.com/2008/10/un-tarde-de-segway-por-barcelona.html

Segway tours in Madrid with Madsegs

2009-05-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

If you happen to go to Madrid, call Antony at Madsegs he will take you all around the city with the segway while he tells you all about the history of the city. He will also teach you how to go downstairs while on the segway and to do the "Titanic". You can call him at+34 659824499!

Here are a couple of pictures of Antony on his segway while he was attending the european championships:

By the way, he won the first price!

We have a flickr account :)

2009-05-25T15:27:00.001-07:00

If you want to see what we do and where we go, just check our flickr account at:

Barcelona Segway Glides flickr pictures

There is quite a lot of pictures (hundreds) of us and customers riding along barcelona on our segways :)

Showing off with the segway

2009-05-25T04:20:00.000-07:00

Here are some shots that my friend Pierre did of me showing off with a Segway :) You can check his website at http://www.pierreclemencon.com/

First post!!

2009-05-25T03:43:00.000-07:00

I am making a new website of Barcelona Segway Glides a lifting of the old (it does look very very old after five years...) Here are some screen shots of how it will look like: