Gone Gaudí Crazy

Barcelona is as wonderful as ever....fantastic weather, good food, beautiful parks, fabulous architecture...it pretty much has it all. We're having a lot of fun and are really enjoying our last few days of this trip.

June 26 - Venice to Barcelona

We arrived into Barcelona in the early afternoon and took care of some "administrative stuff." These days that means doing laundry, buying cold water (I can't wait to be reunited with ice) and checking email. We had only a few hours of sleep the night before so we decided to call it an early night and save the partying for another day.

June 27 - Barcelona

We spent the day sight-seeing....walking La Rambla, checking out the Christopher Columbus statue, roaming around near the port, strolling through the Gothic Quarter. We kept an eye out for all buildings by Antoni Gaudí, the coolest architect ever and the king of modernism (my opinion). After lunch we toured Casa Battló, my absolute favorite Gaudí piece. It was built in 1906 and has just been opened to the public. I was nearly jumping up and down the entire tour - the man was a genius! After Casa Battló we walked down Passeig de Gracia, a wide tree-lined boulevard, to Casa Mila, which is another one of Gaudí's important works. We decided to hold off on the tour but enjoyed the building from outside.

By the time we were done strolling it was nearly soccer time and Matt was itching to watch the Brazil - Ghana came. So we found a cute little bar where we watched the game with a bunch of old men. It was a good spot. Then I couldn't resist - I dragged Matt out to see some more Guadí! We headed to the Park Güell, which is on a hill over looking the city. It was a nice place to hang out while the sun sank low in the sky.

For the last two weeks we have been going on and on about how we need nachos so when Matt found a Tex-Mex place in a guidebook of course we had to try it. Believe it or not, the food was pretty good and the margaritas were great. So we spent the evening there enjoying our drinks and getting soccer score updates from the waitress.

June 28 - Barcelona

Since we are now living like Spaniards, which means eating dinner at 9 or 10pm, we also have to sleep in. It's either that or we are trying to live like we only have a few days of this dream life left. Whatever the case may be, we didn't move until at least 10 that morning so the day was slipping away. When we finally did get moving we headed to the beach to catch some sun. Unfortunately the clouds moved in so we had to opt for plan B, which was the Catalonia History Museum. It turned out to be a good trade-off as the museum was well-done and gave us some interesting insight to this area of Spain. After we left the museum the sun was out again so we headed back to the beach for a couple hours.

That evening we took a recommendation from our guidebook for dinner and had one of our best meals ever. Such a great spot - candlit restaurant with exposed brick...fabulous food...good wine. It was great. Matt had the traditional Spanish chorizo and it was spectacular. We had a nice walk up La Rambla on the way home.

June 29 - Barcelona

Today is definitely a beach day. We were at the beach by 9:30 soaking up the sun on a beautiful, clear day. Matt hung out with me for a while and then went for a run. He reported back that he found the nude beach about 2 miles down the beach - our beach spot for tomorrow, perhaps? Haha. After his run he headed back to the hotel to clean up and have lunch while I stayed on at the beach.

We have just a couple days left but still more Gaudí to see so we'll be busy...and I'm not done with the beach yet!