The City of Gaudi

 As I've mentioned before, I fell in love with Spain after our last visit.
So I was eager to get back and explore another corner of this wonderful country.

My three night MSC Blog Cruise ended in Barcelona.

This is a city that I was eager to visit and Matt was excited to revisit,

so he flew out and met me for a few extras days in this modern, ancient city.

I got a lesson in European assertiveness when I disembarked the cruise ship during a torrential downpour.

I headed straight for the taxi line and politely took my place in the queue.

Ha!  I quickly realized that less than half of us were complying with proper line etiquette.

The rest had decided that they weren't required to wait and would just jump into the next taxi.

 The shouting started, the situation escalated and the police were called.

After a half hour getting soaking wet and actually being bullied out of two taxis when I was NEXT IN LINE,

I realized that she who screams the loudest gets the taxi.

I must have done it right because no one fought me as I jumped in yelling "Mine!"

I might have even stomped my foot.  But I got that next taxi, dammit.

After the initial drama, our stay in Barcelona was wonderful.

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain
and after London and Paris, is one of the most visited cities in Europe.

We stayed at the Musik Boutique Hotel and were very happy with our stay.

Cute and comfortable with a very nice breakfast each morning.

We took a hop on/hop off bus one day when it was raining,

but most of the time we just spent exploring the Old City on foot.

The city is world renowned for it's interesting architecture.

It's a great combination of historical and modern.

I found the eyeball building, The Ohla Hotel, particularly interesting.

You can't talk about Barcelona without mentioning the work of Antoni Gaudi.

The city is dotted with his whimsical and distinctive designs, full of curves and color.

We visited two of his works, La Sagrada Familia and Le Pedrera which I'll show you in future posts.

 

The city's most famous pedestrian street is the tree-lined Las Rambles but after about twenty minutes

fighting the tourists and dodging the street performers, I was anxious to get back into the side streets.

That's where you can get lost and really experience the wonderful city of Barcelona.

 We walked and walked, stopping for ice cream or jamón when we needed sustinance.  

When it was time for lunch we would pop into a Tavern for pinchos and wine.

 It's kind of like tapas.  The bar was covered with trays containing a large variety of skewered snacks.

You settle up your bill by just counting the number of sticks you have left on your plate at the end.

We walked all the way down to the port passing some interesting art pieces along the way.

 

Barcelona is also the home of one of the top rated city beaches, so of course we had to take a look.

The sand was a bit rough, as was the crowd,
but we enjoyed watching the sun go down over this beautiful Mediterranean city.

What is your favorite thing about Barcelona?

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