I stand corrected

In the last post I mentioned being blown away by a cathedral. Well, Antoni Gaudi had other idea...the Sagrada Família. He started it in 1915 and died in 1926. It is still not completed. It reaches so high in the sky, it can be seen towering above the skyline of Barcelona from anywhere in the city.

From a distance, it is amazing. Up close, it is massive, ornate, overwhelming, and impressive. Pictures do it no justice, but I've added some. The photos are from our walk around it, or the rooftop of Casa Milà. Each angle is different, it's just unreal.

Wow!

This cathedral was amazing. It was build in the 1400's. It's huge with cavernous arches inside that are 100's of feet up. It's unbelievable. I went to a lot of church's and cathedrals in Ireland and Mexico, but this is by far the most impressive.

In both Italy and Spain there is a guard at the door of many famous churches and cathedrals that turns people away if you are not dressed appropriately. Your shorts must be a certain length and the shoulders of women must be covered. Conveniently, there is a booth just in front selling scarves and wraps :-) I didn't see any men with tank tops going in, so I'm not sure if they would be turned away or not. Lots of women were being turned away for the length of their shorts or wearing halter tops or thin strapped tanks.

Sorry for the poorly lit photos, but my point-and-shoot can only do so much in these situations.

Picasso Museum

Barcelona is filled with great art, architecture. We enjoyed a visit to the Picasso Museum. It has artwork from his childhood throughout his life. The entire museum is organized chronologically and allows you to see his development and changes over time. Additionally, there are great descriptions of each period of his life on the walls. What a great experience. I did take one photo. I saw this and had to take a photo. This woman is surrounded by great art and she decides to charge her tablet and check in a Facebook. Oh how far we've come!

Not really worth it

We enjoyed our walk around while looking for Juicy Jones. We were all still hungry and happy to find the restaurant. The walls we wild and crazy and you can see from the photo and we had high hopes for some great vegan dishes.

One thing we have noticed, we are in a city now. Servers are not as patient as they were in Switzerland and Italy. JJ & I both struck out on our choices. How does a vegan place run out of hummus...seriously! Then we tried something else...nope, out of that too. JJ ended up with a tapas of olives and tofu and I got potato soup. While the food wasn't bad, it was probably the worst meal we've had.

Jackpot!

We left the hotel starting our search for Juicy Jones (a vegan place). We made it about 10 steps and made a huge find. The is a little place selling falafel and hummus...and beer for JJ, Jo, and Charm. We were all hungry, so we stopped for a sample to hold us over.

20 steps later was place with pitchers of Sangria. We had to stop! Our hotel is on the edge of the Univeristy so there are shops, bars, and coffee houses all around us! After we enjoyed our Sangria, we headed over to the Rumbas.



We came across this awesome market. It has everything, and I mean everything. The butcher shops were a bit much for Charm, Jo, and JJ. They had rabbit, lamb, beef (all parts), duck, chicken, turkey, quail, etc. The fish vendors were awesome, so much variety and so fresh! Then we hit the fruit and veggy folks, throw some bakery, cheese, a wine vendors and you have a one-stop-shop!

Welcome to Spain!

We took the train from Manarola to Genoa and then jumped on a flight to Barcelona. We took Vueling airlines and they are fantastic. This was the cleanest, most spacious plane I've been on in years.

We landed in Barcelona and were blown away by the airport. It was nicer than most malls in the US. Tons of high-end shops, clean, well lit, spacious. Very nice welcome to Spain.

We grabbed a taxi and had a little issue. The driver had no idea where we needed to go. He looked in his books, used his GPS and didn't have a clue. We had pulled out of the taxi line and then pulled over while he was trying to find it. Meanwhile, the meter was running. We said we would take another cab, so he backed up and we got out. Then another driver helped him and he reset the meter and off we went.




Barcelona is a very busy and diverse town. Tons of traffic, lots of people, vendors everywhere, etc. the complete opposite of everything we've seen so far, but a fun change.

We dropped out stuff off in our room and took off to wander the Ramblas. What a sight...traffic zipping along on each side of this large pedestrian walkway, vendors selling, every language you can think of being spoken around you. It was great.

Italy photo collection

Here are some final photos from Cinque Terre, before we move on to Barcelona.



This photo is from the marina in Manarola. they are lifting a boat out of the harbor.








The photo above was from a little bar in Manarola. Jo and I hung out for a while. It was interesting to hear an Italian take on American Blues. Very different phrasing, but fun. The band took a break and our host, Nichola (guitar player in the white shirt on the right) and his cousin from LA (bass player in the hat on the left) and his friend (female singer) did some numbers. Nichola is planning to go to the conservatory for classical guitar next year.

The original band had a harmonica player (he wasn't very good, lots of notes, no real playing, and he was often using the wrong key harp) I almost ran back up the hill to grab a harp and see if I could sit in.