Written June 2017

July 4-8: Barcelona, Spain

Sites: We walked La Rambla, the city’s most popular pedestrian street, and were not impressed. We ate overpriced paella there, and it was not so tasty. We toured La Catedral, which had beautiful stained glass windows and offered amazing views from above. We visited the Museu Picasso, but only because it was free on the day we were there. A highlight was La Sagrada Familia, which had impressive detail inside and out. Lance loved the organ pipes and changing colors. I remember eating individual thin crust pizzas in a little shop right outside as it started to sprinkle.

I’m pretty sure we went inside both La Pedrera and Casa Batllo, famous buildings designed by Gaudi. The latter is known as “Gaudi at his hallucinogenic best.” It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It felt like we were in an Alice and Wonderland-type dream, with vibrant colors, wavey windows, uneven surfaces, life size mushrooms etc. In addition to seeing where Mandi served her mission, Park Guell was high on my reason list for visiting Barcelona. On the day we arrived, it was raining and the lighting was bad. My disappointment made Lance encourage me to rearrange our days. I’m glad we did. We came back another day and the park and its views were beautiful.

Another day, maybe one of the first, we visited Castell de Montjuic, a one-time fortress that offered great views. We didn’t realize there was a bus up, so we trekked the entire hill of stairs from the city. In Spain we also attended church, and that evening stumbled upon a Harley Davidson festival happening in a city square, where we enjoyed yummy foods, like potatoes with a fried egg on top.

Lodging: In Barcelona we stayed in an AirBNB that was close to the Arc de Trionf, within walking distance to La Rambla (a popular walking street) and adjacent to Ciutadella Park. It was on the ground floor of a several stories high building that was originally built in 1879 (remodeled in 2012). It was quite musty smelling, but it had two separate rooms, an ample kitchen and a washing machine, so it worked well. It was $448 for five nights.