What a Day! Barcelona

Mammoth walking and elevation!

Started off with breakfast at the lovely Cafe across the road from the hotel. Staff lovely, great coffee and perfect pastries! And they play good music nothing techno or pulsating beats!

Meant to say had a good night sleep in the off corridor from the main circle of rooms not city view.

First stop was a walk to the Gothic Quarter heading to the cathedral. Beautiful inside but we have been spoilt of the inside beauty of Toledo cathedral. Bonus though, roof access! I love a big view from a rooftop. This one was mighty fine. Miles of rooftops and clear skies. Enjoyable and quiet too, there before it got busy although it’s not really much so in January! The highlight though was a group of geese that lived in the gardens . Fighting each other over the food that was chucked for them at 11am and the boss big goose pecking whoever came close. Great entertainment.

We wandered along to Placa Reial, big and beautiful and sat at a Cafe for lunch, early I suppose and had nice omelette, in the lovely sunshine while Back home were awaiting the next storm. Hard to believe. Short sleeves in January, we’ve been lucky with the weather so far. It may be cold for the locals though!

Next was a wander to the market off La Ramble. I got a tub of fruit to take with us and a couple of pastries for where we were going next, to eat. Got the metro to the area of Parc Guell . Biggg hill to climb to get to the entrance. Up to the towers, at picnic with the view, then we walked back down to the big mosaic seat . My knees were grumbling.

There was a bus stop at the bottom of the big hill so we hopped on it and made our way to La Pedrera, one of Gaudí’s beautifully designed apartment for the rich. It was stunning! The highlight being the crazy statues on the roof. What a genius he was. Didn’t realise he took his designs from nature…. Clever.

Was starving. It was 5pm. We don’t adopt Spanish eating times when in Spain we either eat a nice lunch in a restaurant or early evening like at home. I found a brilliant tapas place open. It said it got queues frequently but struck it lucky and got one of the last tables for two. It was gorgeous inside and pretty big. The food was tasty, the creme Catalan superb. We had six dishes , two drinks for 28€ and could not fault it.

We were both almost like zombies walking back to the hotel. It was 7pm and the streets were buzzing with shoppers and folks going out. We lightweights were heading back to the hotel for a cuppa and relax and we were sleeping by 10pm.

Girona tomorrow (Wednesday). I have added lots of extras if anyone likes to look at holiday snaps!