Our first stop was la Sagrada Familia, the Gaudi-designed church that Barcelona is famous for. We walked around the outside of the church, looking for its best side, and gazed up at the various spires and nooks and crannies. It certainly doesn't appeal to me, but what would I know? You can make up your own mind. We did not bother going inside as the wait was over an hour, and we didn't want to reach cathedral saturation in our first city.
Our next destination was Park Gruell, but not before a Spanish breakfast at La Boulangerie - Cafe con Leche and a pastry. The ladies agreed that the coffee was excellent, and Randy and I gave the pastries two thumbs up also. After that refuelling stop it was on to Park Gruell, which is close to the top of the hill on the north side of Barcelona.
Park Gruell is what remains of Eusebi Gruell's grand plan to build an estate for the wealthy on the Muntanya Pelada. Probably his big mistake was to have Antoni Gaudi design the estate - they built houses for themselves but not much more, and by 1914 the project failed, and in 1922 the property was acquired by Barcelona City Council. You have to wonder what Gaudi was smoking when he designed this and some of his other projects - his style certainly has not been very enduring.
Remember the days when friends took photos of friends and shared them when they got home? Those days seem to be gone, with almost everybody under 30 having their cameras on long extendable poles with wired or wireless shutter controls, and taking selfies at all the sights of interest....maybe I will try it one of these days (just so there are photos of me in my blog. It is all about me after all).
The rain arrived while we were still at Park Gruell and continued on and off for the rest of the day, with the showers getting heavier as the day wore on. After touring the park we walked east higher up the hill, and then wound our way back down, stopping at Restaurant Alaska (not a highlight) for lunch - my biqini (grilled ham and cheese sandwich) was okay but Marlene was not impressed with the fish soup - lots of bones in the fish pieces, swimming in an anaemic broth. But we were fortified and rested our legs, out of the rain.
Once back down to Avenue Diagonal, we headed northwest to Pg. Garcia, checking out the architecture along this wide Avenue. Heading south on Pg. Garcia we passed all the big name (expensive) stores, which were all closed, it being Sunday. There was a book market running for several blocks down both sides of the street, but very few books in English, or it would have been an exceedingly slow walk home.
After a little downtime to catch up on laundry, update the blog, drink some tea, etc., we headed out for dinner at a little Mexican restaurant, La Cantina Mexicana, and the food was excellente. We started with their homemade guacamole, followed by the mushroom quesadillas. We could happily eat there again.
Today was not quite as energetic as yesterday- 22272 steps (16.2 km), but we did 720 feet of elevation gain, so not a bad day in the rain.
Monday morning we have a 6 hour train ride to Burgos, departing at 09:30, so it will be an early start. We are not expecting wifi at our Burgos accommodations so it may be a few days until my next post.
