Barcelona

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On Saturday 29th September we flew to Gerona airport in Spain, and then caught a bus to Barcelona, where we spent a very enjoyable 6 nights. The apartment that we had booked was located in the Barri Gotic quarter, just off The Ramblas, the famous pedestrian boulevard that cuts through the heart of the city. The Ramblas, and the streets that run off from it, are full of shops, restaurants, tapas bars, Irish & Australian pubs. They are also jam packed with people, a combination of tourists and locals.

There was plenty to see and do in Barcelona. We went to see La Sagrada Familia, a huge cathederal designed by Antoni Gaudi that has been under construction since 1882. It is not expected to be completed for another 30 years or so, well over budget and not a good example of effective project management. We also visited the excellent Picasso Museum, which traces the development of the painter Pablo Picasso, who was born in Malaga on the Costa Del Sol but spent a number of his early years in Barcelona. Guy also visited an interesting museum dedicated to another Barcelona painter, Joan Miro, who lived around the same time as Picasso, as well as the very disappointing Olympic Museum (Barcelona was the host of the 1992 Olympics).

Barcelona is full of interesting architecture, and we visited a number of sites around the city which showcased the 'modernismo' style developed in Barcelona (Antoni Gaudi, who designed the La Sagrada Familia cathedral was one of the main players behind these designs). We spent a pleasant hour in Park Guell, which is an interesting park in the city designed by Gaudi.

We visited the famous Monastery of Montserrat, around an hour out of Barcelona, perched high on a mountain outside the city. One of the highlights of this was the performance of the Monasterry choir, although we felt a bit ripped off after waiting for an hour to see them sing when they only performed for 9 or 10 minutes. Also of interest was the fact that the monk who introduced the choir was the splittling image of one of the lawyers who works at Wesfarmers who both Sharon and Guy have dealt with over the years (David - have you got a part-time gig).

Another daytrip was to the beach resort town of Sitges, which is half an hour south of Barcelona by train. This was a very pleasant day, spent mainly lying on the beach, although it did make us long for some extended time at the beach and contributed largely to our decision to spent the next two weeks on the Costa Del Sol doing just that. The beaches at Barcelona were also very impressive, wide and sandy, although given their proximity to the port we're not sure how clean the water would be.

After a very enjoyable 5 days, our Barcelona experience ended badly when Guy had his wallet pickpocketed as we boarded the train to the airport to fly out. We were alerted to this by a Spanish girl who started yelling just as the train was about to depart. We had no idea what she was saying but all of the local men started to check their pockets so Guy did the same, and found that he was minus his wallet. Luckily there was no cash in it (he had used his last 5 euro note to buy the train tickets and Sharon hadn't yet given him his allowance) but of course we could have done without the inconvience of having to cancel all of his cards etc. We quickly hopped off the train just as the doors were closing and after a 30 minute visit to the police at the station we ran to make the next train, only just in time to catch our flight to Malaga.

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Photos

The Sardana - A Tradition Catalan dance
This dance is performed every Sunday morning in front of the main Barcelona Cathedral. This has special significance for the older folks as the dance was banned during the 40 years of the Franco dictatorship.

La Sagrada Familia
You can see from this photo inside that it is very much a construction site still.

La Padrera, otherwise known as Casa Mila
One of the bulidings designed by Gaudi