Barcelona and Montserrat

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We have had another two wonderful days in Barcelona. Yesterday we did the rest of the sights in the city. We started off the day by visiting the church Santa Maria del Mar, right near our hotel. Then we headed to the Picasso museum. Picasso helped found the museum in the 1970´s and donated much of the art work located there.

Afterwards we hopped back on the tourist bus and headed to Park Guell. The park was originally commissioned by Gaudi´s patron Eusebi Guell to be a garden suburb community of Barcelona, but it never took off. Gaudi turned it instead into a garden paradise where you are greeted by two gingerbread houses upon entering. The whole place seemed like a scene from Alice in Wonderland.

After a great lunch, I accidentally took my Mom through the prostitute section on our way to the Joan Miro museum. Variety is the spice of life right? My Mom didn´t agree. We walked all the way up the Montjuic hill to find out that we only had 20 minutes to view the museum. We decided to go anyway. I mean, when will I be in Barcelona again?

Today we took a day trip to visit the monastery of Montserrat about an hour outside of Barcelona. If you are ever in Barcelona buy the combo ticket to go there. It’s a great deal! So, Montserrat is a picturesque monastery built on the side of a huge limestone mountain. It was built in the 12th century to house the “Black Virgen” a carved image of the virgin Mary.

We took the train there from Barcelona and then took the cable car up the mountain. When we arrived we decided to take the funicular even higher up the mountain to get some great views of the valley. Once we were excited from walking around the top of the mountain we headed back down to visit the monastery. It was beautiful. The Black Virgen is located in the middle of the back wall of the altar. We were able to walk up and see her close up. Afterwards we headed to the museum where we were able to see several works by Picasso, Degas, Monet, and Dali. To end our day we took the funicular down the mountain a bit a took in some more great views.

So, another great day of travelling. Tomorrow we are off to Edinburgh to 45 degree temperatures!!

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Comments

[Johnny G]

Late at night here at LA and I'm reading your blog. Fecking hell it sounds great to be seeing cool places with some history and lots of nice, honest down to earth people. Kinda exact opposite to LA really. Although the beaches are nice here, I guess. I shouldn't whine, things are going well for me. It's just much more exciting to be jet setting around like you are :) It was a big scary decision you made to go on this wonderful trip of yours and having made some similar decisions in my life, I think you'll find that when it's over, the strength of making that decision will stay with you. The smaller day to day decisions, that maybe at one time we fretted over, will become a whole lot easier to handle, freeing you up to focus on the things that really matter. In short, life will be even more fun than it ever was before.