As I sit here on Sunday evening, September 4, trying to pick up where I left off weeks ago, which was already weeks after our Barcelona trip, I so wish I would have gone without sleep and kept this blog current. The past six or seven weeks have been crazy busy, and the weeks before that were spent trying to catch up from the A-team's trip and what we did between then and Barcelona. Add to that what we did in the three or so weeks after Barcelona, our cruise, and our trip to the states, and I feel like I will never get caught up, let alone remember the details! So....here I am---trying so hard to remember what we did, where we went, what the names of things are, etc. I asked DJ what he remembered about our trip to Barcelona, and he said, "We had a really good time!" What kind of help is that? However, he is right. He hadn't given a very glowing report when he got back from Barcelona in 2001. I had NO desire to go, so I thought the two plus days we would spend there would be adequate and then some. However, Barcelona is now in our top 5-ish of favorite places we have been, and we WANT to go back!
We flew from Pamplona to Barcelona on a Friday morning (June 24th). We basically were going to have two days to see things because we headed for Basel on Sunday morning. We knew we wanted to see Segrada Familia so once we found our hotel (very clean and nice enough, but located in the ghetto) and once we traversed the "hood" trying to find the subway (we almost went back to the hotel and gave up), we found our way to the ticket booth for a trip on one of Barcelona's two tour bus lines. We chose Barcelona Bus Turistic, which is a multi-line (3) bus tour company which has "hop on, hop off" capabilities. In other words, if you want to get off at a stop and sight see, you can do that, stay as long as you want, and wait for another bus! Loved that feature. Loved the fact that their buses were double-deckers and that the weather was BEAUTIFUL! We bought a two-day pass, and I have to say this was one of the most awesome ways to see a city. We headed straight to S.F. but caught a few of the following pictures along the way, the rest of them were taken on the way back to the bus stop because we knew we wanted to have dinner and shop in that area later that night.
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| Loved these buses equipped with earphones, which described what we were seeing in multiple languages. |
Barcelona is full of incredible buildings. It was once touted as The City of Architects. I didn't take notes so I know I won't get all the detail right; but when I can't I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
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| Casa Lleo Morera |
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| The building on the left is the Casa Amattler which uses straight lines and lots of them in contrast to Gaudi's Casa Batllo next door to the right. The C.A.'s architect, Cadafalch, looked to the past and to foreign influence (the gables are of Dutch origin), and he used straight lines to still create a house of "beauty and invention". In Gaudi's Cas Batllo (right), straight lines were out. |
The following three shots were taken in front of the property where one of the royal residences is located:
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| The painted motif on this building was incredible! |
By the time we got here, I was so ready to rest and to have American food. We had been up so early, packed, flown to Barcelona, had a long taxi ride to the hotel, had experienced a harrowing adventure to find the subway stop, had braved the lines at S.F. and scaled the heights there, and then ridden onward sucking in all the sights along the "blue line". We were bushed and hungry, and I was so excited to have American food. I wasn't disappointed!
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