BARCELONA

Barcelona was a charming last stop on our tour of Spain. This city has a bit of everything (beach, art, architecture, parks, pedestrian streets...) We had several highlights in Barcelona which included the beach for Dan and shopping for me. However, the biggest highlights were Picasso and Gaudi. We saw an amazing exhibit at the Picasso Museum which included a painting of Picasso's version of Las Meninas. Las Meninas was a painting done by Velazquez that we had just seen at the Prado Museum in Madrid. This is known as the most perfect painting ever made and it was fun to see Picasso's take on the painting after having just seen the original. Another entire day in Barcelona was spent touring all of the Gaudi sights. While we saw many, our favorites were Gaudi's unfinished Sagrada Familia Cathedral and Parc Guell a colorful Park with beautiful views of the city. We hope to return to Barcelona one day to see the completion of Gaudi's cathedral.

Renfe speed train to Barcelona...we took the speed train all through Spain

Las Ramblas...the main pedestrian thorough-fare

Our hotel on a cute square off Las Ramblas

Motorcycles everywhere

Christopher Columbus Monument at the end of Las Ramblas

Palau Guell...one of Gaudi's buildings

The building is currently being renovated, but we did get to see the basement

Placa Reial...Neoclassical square

La Boqueria...Barcelona's Pikes Place

More views of Las Ramblas...the trees were beautiful

Barcelona's Cathedral very close to our hotel

Picasso Museum

Walking into the Picasso Museum

We took this tourist bus to many of the Gaudi sights

Block of Discord...a Gaudi building with other competing facades from Gaudi rivals

La Pedrera...Gaudi's famous apartment building that looks like melting ice cream

View of Barcelona from the roof of La Pedrera

Gaudi's fascinating roof top of La Pedrera

Sagrada Familia..Gaudi's amazing unfinished cathedral

They are still working hard on the cathedral. I would love to see this completed

Gaudi's Park Guell...it reminded Dan of Dr. Seuss

Entrance of the park

Gaudi's home that was in the park

More breathtaking architecture as we hiked through the park

Back on our tourist bus

Dan finally gets his beach day on the Mediterranean with several massages

On our last night we took a night bus tour of the city

The tour ended at the magic fountains show and it was raining hard

We still had a ball

We had breakfast each morning at this cute cafe...we loved the paintings in the background

One last stroll down Las Ramblas before flying out to London and home