Bye bye Barcelona

The weather in Barcelona was great and that made for a more enjoyable trip. Barcelona is a lovely city nestled by the seaside.Managed to drop into the Catalonia museum in the morning which is right on the sea (old port building)

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It's a bit like St Kilda but with a port attached to the beach, I'm not talking cargo ships but yacht clubs and ferries  Oh, and unlike St Kilda the people are nice and not full of themselves. The city has a massive intake of tourists and most Catalans are bi-lingual which makes it easy to communicate, they were also very helpful and polite. There are lots of warnings about theft but the police presence was heavy and we were careful (no different from any other city). We spent an afternoon by the seaside just sitting and eating/drinking and generally letting the world go by. I guess that's what a good holidays about, jumping off the rat race and just 'chilling' for a bit. This was not to last forever as there was serious shopping to be done.

We had an apartment in the centre of town ( Carrer Petritoxl ) and fortunately or unfortunately (for the wallet) this allowed for easy shopping. There is an amazing variety of food to eat especially for a carnivore like myself. The amount of chocolate /nougat shops is amazing and we had to stock up for the trip home.

Shell the shoeaholic was in her element, a vast array of every colour imaginable and some that should never have been (my opinion) were sprawled amongst the twisting lanes (streets) that made up the east side of Barcelona. Theses twisting lanes of shops usually end in 'placas' were I guess you are supposed to grab and coffee/tea, rest, then continue on your shopping safari.

No trip to Barcelona is complete without mentioning 'Gaudi' (the architect). His design influence is across the city, very organic forms combined with the rigid block construction of modern cities. Possibly his greatest work , the Sagrada, is a towering church of immense complexity/detail that is currently covered in cranes as they attempt to restore/finish what could be classified as the '8^th' wonder of the world. It reminds me a bit of the tower of Babel, a truly epic and unique structure.

There is plenty more to see an do in Barcelona, let alone the countryside, but the wallet won't survive so it's time to head back to Ireland.