Barcelona

Like most places we saw in Europe, Barcelona was breathtaking. The beach was 1 block from our first hotel which made things easy for me while Jeff was working. I slept in, hung out on the beach, grabbed delicious food, and walked along the 'catwalk' while he was at meetings and dinner. The hotel was beautiful and had a pool on the rooftop that overlooked the ocean. Our second hotel was near the beach as well, had a pool on the rooftop and our room had a view of the city and mountains.

The metro in Barcelona is extremely clean and easy to use. Only one stop confused us because you have to leave the underground station and follow a dotted yellow line a few blocks to another station to catch the connecting train. We thought it would charge us again, but it didn't. We used the metro Saturday the 13th to get around to the main attractions in Barcelona.

Saturday we woke up and left on our adventure by 9:30. Apparently they live by a different clock in Spain because nobody was up or on the streets that early. Our first metro stop was Jaume I and after a short walk we stopped at the Barcelona Cathedral (which is free until noon- again, proof that nobody is awake in Spain before noon on a Saturday). The cathedral had an open courtyard on one side with a duck pond and fountains. The inside of the cathedral was very dark, so forgive the pictures...we were just beginning to master the settings on the camera. It was gorgeous though. We walked around and took some pictures there and then had a short walk to 'Les Rambles'.

Les Rambles is a street in Barcelona with many vendors, performers, and trees. The sidewalk is actually in the center and the cars go down where a sidewalk would normally be, so the street is made for pedestrians. We went into a 'Carrefour' which is like their version of a Walmart. After paying 2.5 Euros for a can of soda that week, we were thrilled that a can was only .50Euros. I also got hypoallergenic suntan lotion for 3 Euros! Back on the street we found the open air market. It was amazing and I'm so jealous. I got fresh fruit and Jeff got a fresh squeezed juice. They had stand after stand of fresh fruit, veggies, meats, seafood, candy, etc. Everything looked so fresh and colorful. We didn't stay there long though b/c it was extremely crowded. We sat on park benches and finished up the food and then took the metro from Cataluna to the Diagonal line to the Sagrada Familia stop.

Now we know we were in Spain and we probably should have eaten more traditional Spanish food, but when your in a hurry and you have things to see, you have to get fast food (even in Spain). We stopped and had lunch at KFC of all places. Then it was off to the main attraction of the day...Sagrada Familia. My mom's cousin Dianne did a semester abroad and she said that if we went to Barcelona, we had to stop and see the work of Gaudi. Gaudi is and architect from the 1800s that lived in Barcelona. He started this church, worked on it the last years of his life, never finished it and is buried there. There is still work being done on the Sagrada Familia today. It was amazing. He used very advanced methods to come up with his designs and he modeled most of his work after things found in nature. We went to the top (after a 45 minute wait for the elevator) and I was scared out of my mind. We took pictures looking out over the city from the top which was cool, but I was so terrified that I was going to fall or drop my camera and kill someone. We took a spiral staircase down and it kept getting more narrow as we neared the bottom. I think Jeff actually took video of me hanging on for dear life. I think we took a majority of our pictures of Barcelona here. After a few hours of exploring, we took another metro ride from Sagrada Familia to Lesseps.

The tour book we were using and the metro map said that our next destination was a 15 minute walk from the metro stop (but we had no idea which direction and there were no signs)! We went about a block too far, realized that couldn't be right and managed to find the steepest hill on earth that we knew was the right direction. We were going to 'Parc Guell' which was built on top of one of the highest points in Barcelona, looking out over the city. Gaudi was commissioned to build this park along with 60 'gingerbread' houses. His work on it was stopped for some reason and he only finished 2 of the houses. The park was like nothing I've ever seen and sooo relaxing. It didn't seem like a tourist attraction, but rather there were local families there having picnics and taking naps. There were mosaic benches, flowers everywhere, green archways, and musicians playing. We took tons of pictures there too because it was definitely the best park I have ever been to.

We got some mint chocolate chip ice cream to finish out the day of exploring in Barcelona. We did get showers and go out to a nice spaghetti bolognese dinner that night too. Next....the cruise.