Friday 20 April 2012  - Barcelona City

Day 8 and 150 to go

Awake and feeling rested this morning I dragged Paul out to the beach for an early morning walk. The sun was only just up as we looked out towards Barcelona watching the light bounce off the city. I reached into the Mediterranean just to say that I did. The water was quite warm. Despite the clear and fine morning there was no one out enjoying the water. On day like this many of the Perth beaches would have been packed. 

 

We returned to the van for breakfast and to clean up before heading back out and onto the train into Barcelona. It was only a 15min trip and we were in the heart of it emerging at Font de Canaletes a large fountain in the middle of crazy streets packed with traffic. The same place we drove the van through yesterday. Ahhhh!

I attempted to get my bearings but it wasn’t really happening so we followed the crowds down the main street La Rambla. It was packed with tourists and at times I felt like a salmon swimming up stream. We stopped at a small café along the main strip mainly because of the size of the beer glasses. I told Paul I wanted the glass for a small goldfish it was that large. It was wonderful just sitting and watching the world go by. Barcelona is a lot different to Madrid. It is quite obviously a modern city.

Our walk continued down La Ramble to Mirador de Colom, a large statue marking the port. We wandered along the waterfront checking out the vessels, including Victoria, a recreated ship of the 15^th century.  

 

Wanting to find the Palau Guell, we headed back up a different street only to get ourselves lost and ending up in hooker ave. The girls were of all shapes, sizes, ages and races. In every doorway one stood. It was quite sleazy.

Quite by accident we ended up at the Catalunya Biblioteca and I realised we had walked too far again. The Biblioteca was yet another interesting building with a courtyard in which many students were gathered enjoying the sunshine.

Back out on the main road and retracing our steps, much to Paul’s delight, I found the street I had missed the first time that led to the Palau Guell. The façade was an intricate carving of stone and steel adorned above by interesting turrets covered in coloured tiles. This was the first artwork created by Gaudi for the Guell Family. 

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Now with some understanding of direction we headed across the road to check out the Plaza Reial and on to the Cathedral a magnificent gothic building dating back to the 13^th century. 

By now the walking was paying off and lunch was required. We found a café off the main streets to eat at. It was a welcome relief to be off the feet and to have food in the belly.

With the major architecture ticked off the list we decided to end our day in Barcelona and head back to the van. By 4pm we were enjoying a cold drink.