More rambala from Barcelona

Poble Espanyol
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Day 13, Thursday 17 May (318 Hours gone 570 to go)

Hola, hope you are not too bored with our ramblings to date, this was originally designed to provide us with a record of our trip and to provide our family with a bit of an idea of what we are up to, but then we decided to invite a few other close friends to save on writing postcards. It has also been great to receive your comments and emails on our big adventure.

We decided to purchase a two day ticket on the open top, hop on hop off, tourist bus   which will provide us with an all over look at of Barcelona city and will allow us to explore the sights that look interesting.

Wharf area
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First stop is, Poble Espanyol, which is a full-scale replica Spanish Village built in 1929 up in the foothills that is home to various artisans and provides a great view over the City. Then down to the area where La Rambla meets the port area where they have erected a monument to Columbus. Took the lift up to the top, for another panoramic view of the area. Then on to the Port Olympic an area which was redeveloped for the sailing competitions in the 1992 Olympics. The marina is now home to 700 yachts, just as many restaurants and the Casino de Barcelona. We try to get in, but as Julie has no identification to prove she is over 21 she is refused entry, I wish they had refused me as well.

La Rambla
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Back into the city and onto the Barri Gotic area where the Romans built the original parts of the city. The major sight here is a huge ornate Cathedral with its enclaves dedicated to all the popular Spanish Saints, but could not find Saint Riccardo. Further down the road is Casa Batllo a five story residence built in 1904 and designed by Barcelona’s famous architect, Antonio Gaudi, whose most distinctive art–nouveau style can be seen on a lot of the buildings in Barcelona. It is rumoured that he was the first architect to take speed and this is responsible for his weird and unusual designs. www.casabatllo.es

Columbus Colom
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The last stop for the day is Barcelona’s most recognizable building, the Sagrada Familia, which is another of Gaudi’s dreams to which he devoted most of his life. It is a huge Temple that he commenced building in 1882 and they estimate will be completed in another 30 years. The only trouble is that Gaudi died in 1926. www.sagradafamilia.org

From here we walk home and later look for a local restaurant to have Tapas for dinner and ask the hotel to recommend one close by. Which we find but it is full with a forty minute wait for a table. So we decide to search for another but they are either full or unappealing so we walk around for most of that 40 minutes and find one that looks good but once translated/decoded had a shocking menu. By this time I would eat anything and needed a cold beer so we sit and I have an ordinary meal but Julie’s calamari was OK.

Casa Batllo
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Pedometer reading  18869

Day 14 Friday 18 May 2007  (342 hours down 546 to go)

Our last day in Barcelona, so after a slow morning we decide to catch the Tourist Bus again and complete the tourist routes. Later we do the La Rambla walk again to soak up and enjoy more of the local atmosphere and do a little shopping.

For dinner we decide that we should fulfill my one Spanish dream and have a genuine Spanish Paella, so we walk down our street to a little restaurant, Café Julia,  that Julie discovered in one of her long walks whilst I have my afternoon rest/siesta. We arrive at 8.30pm and are turned away because it is too early, “come back in one quarter”, we are told. Hell in Adelaide most people would be going home at 8.45pm (admittedly it is still broad daylight).

Sagrada Familia
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So back we go and ask for a table inside as it was getting cool, which upset him a bit, and order a seafood paella and a bottle of wine with a salad and some starters. The paella was huge and most of the seafood pretty good, the best part was there were no peas in it which I am sure is an Australian idea. We develop a theory that a Spanish mother had to feed her family one night and only had four prawns and half a calamari left so she cooked up a pile of rice in chicken broth and tossed in the seafood at the end. The proprietor warms to us by the end of the meal and offers a little liqueur on the house in appreciation. This turns out to be a glass of Grappa which tasted like rocket fuel (much more powerful than Bruno’s) and finished up in the ice bucket it was so bad.

My favorite street performer
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We decide over dinner that Barcelona is a modernist cultural city with style that has a love of gastronomy, shopping and leisure. (I actually read this in a magazine and I thought it summed up our feelings pretty well.)

Pedometer reading 13563.