Barcelona

Up next on the trip was Barcelona. Barcelona was a place that I have always wanted to visit, probably influenced by 10 years of Spanish classes. I wasn't disappointed. This was my favorite city on the trip and I hope to make it back for another weekend (or two) while I'm in Stockholm.As you'll see in the pictures, we had great weather in Barcelona. It was warm (but not too hot, except for in the un-air conditioned aquarium) and sunny.

Barcelona harbor

We stayed in a hotel off of Las Ramblas. Las Ramblas is a main road with a large pedestrian area in the center. The road is lined with shops and restaurants. The pedestrian path is lined with newstands and street performers. Most of the street performer were dressed as interesting, often colorful, statues. People bunched around them to see how (if and when) the would move and interact with people getting their pictures taken with them or dropping money in their baskets.

Church of the Sacred Family

We saw a lot of tourist attractions in 3 days. We probably spent the most time at the Church of the Sacred Family and Guell Park. The church was beautiful, although far from finished. It is still under construction, which began in the late 1880s. Construction crews were working in the middle of the tourists. We spent a while in Gaudi's Guell Park -a good part of the time there, we were lost. We climbed up a huge, steep hill to get there. And, gradually worked our way down to the other side of the park, taking in the art as we went (we should have done this the other way around!).

house in Guell Park

Other than the attractions, we wandered through the streets in different areas of the city and enjoyed lots of Spanish tapas, paellas, and sangria.

Barcelona harbor

The boys headed back to NY from Barcelona and the girls moved on to Rome......