Barcelona, Spain

Hola Barcelona!

J and I have been so lucky to have gotten the chance to travel so much this past year! Out latest travel adventure led us to Spain! We started our trip by spending 4 beautiful days in Barcelona. Barcelona is the one place that always seems to receive A+ reviews from travelers. We were so excited to travel there and we were not disappointed!!

We had a little trouble getting to Barcelona. Our hour-long, direct flight from Florence to Barcelona was cancelled (after we sat on the plane for nearly 2 hours). So we had to fly from Florence to Rome and then on to Barcelona. We finally arrived, over 8 hours later then scheduled, but we made it safely!

After settling into our hotel, we set out exploring. We walked down the famous Ramblas stopping at a wonderful market for fresh fruit juice. We made our way to the water enjoying the beautiful scenery!

We decided to try out the world-famous Spanish Tapas and Sangria! Delicious food and an unbeatable setting!

This is the Harbor Bridge. The architecture in Barcelona is very unique, this was our first taste of the interesting buildings/structures.

That night, after wandering around, we made our way back to The Ramblas and had supper. We had delicious vegetable paella - YUM!

The next morning, we set out to discover the art and architecture of Barcelona's famous Gaudi. We walked all over seeing Casa Mila, the Block of Discord and ended at this amazing church:

Sagrada Familia (Holy Family)

This is an amazing work-in-progress. It was started by Gaudi in 1883 and is not scheduled to be completed for at least 50 more years! It is already a huge, impressive church, but the finished church will be almost double this size! When the church is finished, it will have 18 of these towers - 12 dedicated to the apostles, four to the evangelists, one to the virgin Mary and another which will trump them all in size (at 170 metes) to Jesus.

Thought and meaning has gone into every inch of this church. The front depicts the story of The Passion.

This is the inside. As you can see, it is obviously still under construction. It is not used as a church, only as an attraction. In fact, our entrance fee (or donation, as they like to say) went toward the construction of the church.

Pictures just can't capture it, but this church is massive. It will hold over 25,000 people with a choir loft holding a choir of 1,500!! Wow! I will have to go back in 50 years to see this completed!

We went up in to one of the towers. What a view of Barcelona!

A view of the Sagrada Familia from the back. Really, this is an amazing and beautiful place!

After our Gaudi morning, we met up for a bike tour of the city. We saw all of the major sights and learned a lot about the history! It was a beautiful day and we really enjoyed zipping around the city on our bikes!

Cathedral of Santa Eulalia

Ciutadella Park

Back at Sagrada Familia with the bike tour.

And finally to the Beach!! Barcelona has some of the best beaches in the world. Miles of beautiful sand (imported from the Sahara) and amazing blue water. Mojitos and nachos - not a bad end to the tour!

The next morning, we set out with 3 other couples for an amazing day kayaking on the Mediterranean Sea. This was our starting point. Part of me just wanted to spend the day at this small and beautiful beach!

Kayaking on the Sea was simply amazing! The views were breathtaking!!

We got to kayak into caves - one was so dark, we literally could not see a thing, it was pretty creepy!

We had a lovely lunch on this secluded beach. J got in the freezing water to do a little snorkeling. He said that once he got used to the water, it wasn't so bad... I think it's because he actually went numb!

What an experience!

It was a long day! We kayaked about 2.5 hours there and 2 hours back, we were all really tired when we made it back to the beach. I had a huge and painful blister from holding my paddle.

The last day (our last day in Barcelona) we went to the Parc Guell which is a large park that was designed by Gaudi. It had really nice views of the city, but it was so, so hot!

We saw the beautiful and interesting designs of Gaudi. This park benches were really pretty, but to hot to actually sit on - just to pose for a quick picture!

More work by Gaudi.

After the hot morning, we went down to the beach to cool off. We didn't swim, but we walked along the water. It felt so good and it was so relaxing!

There were a number of these amazing "sand castles." Their creators were very talented, we were impressed! This one was my favorite. This is pretty much how I felt with my aching muscles (from kayaking) and being in the hot sun...

While in Barcelona we also made it to the Picasso Museum. Picasso is not our favorite, but the museum had a lot of his early work, so it was interesting to see the progression of the artist.

We really enjoyed simply walking, exploring and people-watching in Barcelona. It is a chill place to go but it also has a lot of culture and fun. It is on our (growing) list of places we would like to return to someday.