Barcelona day 1 (Saturday, September 27th)

None of us slept particularly well with the 9 hour time change, despite being dog tired and in bed by 10 pm last night, so we were all up by 6 am. But what better way to get started on seeing Barcelona!

The plan was to head in the general direction of the Rambles, where Marlene and Marty were hoping to find coffee and something sweet mid-morning.

Our route took us past the Arc de Triomf (yes we are in Barcelona not Paris) and through the Parc de la Ciutadella, which had a particularly impressive feature, The Cascada, which was worth a photo.  It was built in 1888 for the Universal Exhibition, and was designed by Joseph Fontsere, assisted by his then apprentice - Antoni Gaudi.

From there we walked the Av. Marques de l'Argentera which separates the harbour area from the city. Here we found an interesting street exhibition celebrating 70 years of iHola (Hello) magazine, which made the walk a little more interesting. 

At 10 am La Rambla was almost deserted and the stalls were just beginning to setup. We walked about halfway up La Rambla and then veered off through some of the back streets of the old city which were much more interesting. In one square we found a rally going on (I think a Catalonia pro-independence rally, as there was much flag waving going on) - Catalonia plans on voting on separation from Spain in November. Seeing a large police presence on the side streets around the square we exited stage left and wound our way via the Catedral de Barcelona and on to the tourist information to pick up a map, before checking out the Mercat de Santa Caterina which was selling every kind of fish, fowl and fromage imaginable. 

By the time we got back to La Rambla it was wall to wall people and so we headed off into the side streets on the West side and headed in a zigzag manner toward a large green area on the map, which included the site of the 1992 Olympics. There were lots of little bakeries and eateries along the way, so we took a while to reach the green area. As we approached we could see an impressive building high on the hill and opted to check it out, which was a good call as we found great views of the city from in front of it, the National Art Museum of Catalunya.

After a short break to rest out legs and have a cold drink, we continued up past the Olympic stadium and pool, before beginning our descent back to the city.  We passed by the Olympic diving venue, which sadly seemed somewhat abandoned - the only inhabitants were seagulls.  

We fought our way back up la Rambla through the throngs of people and eventually back to our apartment, where we all needed some time off our feet, and focussed on finding a place for dinner.  Trip Advisor came through with a cute little place called aQistoi.  We all found something to our taste and enjoyed sitting at an outside table watching the locals wander by.

Total steps for the day were 30702 (22.3 km) with 380 feet of elevation gain. Not a bad start to the holiday.