The End of theTrip

We left Valencia on Sunday morning and traveled by train to Barcelona. Philip had booked a room in a "romantic, boutique" hostel. Here is a link:http://www.anticespai.com/en/home. Very cute and packed full of antiques. Truly, this hostel is one floor of a four or five floor building. But it was charming and the hosts were wonderful to us..

 Best of all, it was located in a prime location. We could walk to lots of Tapas restaurants. Here's just one.

 

 We walked several times to the "old city". There were shops of every kind and lots of art work, art museums,

                                                street musicians,

archeological digs going on right in the middle of the old town,

We walked on through this part of town and reached the port. This was a very busy place on a Sunday afternoon. Tourists, families, young people.

lots of boats,                                                                      

                                                           and  lots of art work.

Look carefully at the middle section of this bridge. It had just moved open to let a boat pass through.

This was an open market set up in one of the squares. There were so many cool things here. Most of which we had no appreciation for because we couldn't understand where many of these items were from, but lots of old pieces of jewelry, iron works, art, books, magazines, etc.

We had seen these street performers in Valencia as well. They are "movable statues"? This one was a Jurrasic Park type who would grab you, put your head in his jaws or strangle you while someone snapped your photo.

We also were able to check out several street arts and craft shows. Philip talked to several artists and got lots of good information on how they participate in their shows as compared to how we do over here.

                                       We even found the Spanish version of "Piper Sandals".

We found three shows in all but no other bell makers!!!

 

  

This area was back in the central part of town away from the port. It used to be the major bull fighting arena. Barcelona has done away with bull fighting, so now... this is a posh mall inside.

 

                                      This is a view of one of the main squares from the top of the arena.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


This is the square located at the end of the block by our hotel. Two views:

Now, you can't stay in Barcelona for any time at all without
getting an education about the famous architect, Gaudi.
This was just one of the houses he designed. We didn't
pay the rather pricey fee to go inside so just
stood outside with many other tourists and took pictures.
 

The next morning we took off for an all day adventure by foot and by bus. This is us in front of the track and field stadium at the site of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. A view of the city from the hill at the site of Montjuic Castle.

 

This is the view from the other side of that same hill - looking over the port.

... and we ate lunch at the top of the castle.

                                                                  The Castle.

Later in the day, we hit more Gaudi creations. This is the Sagrada Familia. This cathedral is still being completed by students and architects who follow Gaudi's teachings. These pictures do not at all give a true representation of the magnitude of this work.

There were many cranes around this cathedral where men are working to complete this by the middle of this century?

These two pictures show how all work is done first by creation of intricate models.

This is one room of the two room school house built on the grounds for the children of the workers who first worked on the project. It now serves as a starting place for educational tours.

 

On the last day of this wonderful trip, we went to Park Guell. If you are a mosaic lover, then you have seen pictures of this place in EVERY mosaic book you have ever picked up. This was originally supposed to be an upper class housing area in Barcelona. Gaudi was commissioned to create the plans for the owner/developer's home. He did so. A second house was built, but sadly no other people ever purchased land or built homes. Gaudi lived in one of these homes for a period of time. The rest of the area eventually became this lovely park.

 

This is the famous bench at the top of the park. Everyone has probably seen this wavy bench at one time are the other and never realized where it is located.

 .

Well, we have now sat ON it, along with a million other tourists

 

And THIS is the lizard that has also graced many a mosaic books and websites.

 

..... and we had our picture taken with him.

 

One last tribute to Gaudi...

 

We had a great time on this entire trip. Seeing our family that we only now see twice a year was, of course, the best part

 

 

 

We walked so much on this trip, we should be skinny. But then we did also eat Tapas late at night and drank wine with most meals. We learned to ride buses and trains. We learned about the history of Gibraltar and Spain and added to our knowledge of Morocco. And we did it all with one small rolling suitcase and a backpack for each of us. We bought very few souvenirs, but took thousands of pictures.

 

Finally, lest you think we totally forgot about Windsongs, I will post one more time with the pictures of bells that we took along the way. And then... I promise.... I'm through.