Everyone knows that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but it's not necessarily the most fun. So, we had to fly back the US anyway and the closest major airport was in Barcelona therefore, we decided to take a couple of days and explore the Catalonian capital.
We took a two-hour bus ride from Sant Carles to Barcelona and set out to explore for the next three days. Everything we found in this gorgeous city was wonderful. We had a fabulous Airbnb right in a great location right in town and an easy walk from several subway stations and bus stops. Our room had a great balcony overlooking a beautiful tree lined street. We also had a great view from our balcony of the moonrise on our first night!
While we knew we wanted to see all of the famous sites (we made a list from friend recommendations and research), we also spent a fair amount of time simply wandering around in awe of the architecture and testing sangria and wonderful Spanish foods.
Barcelona is well known for the architectural wonders designed by the architect Antoni Gaudi. Our first stop was his minor basilica Sagrada Familia. We were awed by this huge church that is over 140 years old and supposedly only three quarters finished. The lines were long and since we didn't think to get tickets in advance, we decided to wait and go in another time. I'm assuming, that we'll fly back into Barcelona and we loved it enough to want to go back, so I think we'll get tickets and try to get there early.
Next, we went to see the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau. This is the oldest hospital in the city and was founded in 1401. It was operational until the 1930's. We were only able to view it from the outside but the huge gothic building was gorgeous.
We then headed to La Rambla and as the name would seem to imply, it's the perfect place to simply ramble around. It's a wonderful pedestrian street full of beautiful architecture and fun shops. It's definitely the touristy section but it's still pretty cool. Right off La Rambla, we found La Boqueria (the amazing indoor market where you can buy anything from food to jewelry or just grab a bite to eat or something to drink. Several friends had told us to not miss this and we agree!
From there we walked down towards the waterfront and admired both the Christopher Columbus monument (it's over 150 feet tall), the gorgeous park like setting along the water and the Cathedral. Again, one could spend days just admiring the architecture.
Next, we decided to take the Port Cable Car to ride up to Montjuic for more amazing city views. Neither disappointed. The ride was beautiful and we had the car mostly to ourselves so we had fabulous views.
Here are all of my pictures from Barcelona if you want to see more:
Finally, our time was up. While we definitely could have spent several more days exploring, we'd made plans to meet my sister Cathy and friends Dan and Daniel in Italy for a week of exploring by car. Then meet up with Dan and Alison from Equus for us to finally (we'd rescheduled 3 times due to Covid) take our houseboat trip around Venice. But, we'll fill you in on that next time.
Until next post!
