Awoke to another scorcher of a day and after breakfast ventured out into it
The first port of call was to an information kiosk at the port area to get an understanding of the transport system - shunned the hop on hop off buses in favour of the Metro.
Rambled up La Rambla a street which has a pedestrian precinct running up the middle with various touristy type stalls until we arrived at Mercat de la Boqueira a market which has been in existence since 1840.
It is one of the most colourful markets we have come across with many stalls selling all sorts of food products and which look to be very good quality.
Then it was onto the Metro to get to Sagrada Familia.
The queue to enter would have been 200-300 metres long and the sun was beating down so decided to comeback later in the day and it was back to the Metro and off to Park Guell.
Park Guell is on the side of a hill some 4kms from downtown and is a park that contains the house where Gaudi lived the last 20 years of his life and also contains examples of his architectural use of ceramics.
The house is a museum containing examples of his furniture design which was another string to his bow.
Around mid-afternoon we returned to Sagrada Familia and found the queue to only be around 75 metres so after around 20-25 minutes we had our entry tickets and were in.
Antoni Gaudi designed this church in the later 1800's and the construction of it is not expected to be completed until 2026 at current progress which means it will have taken over 100 years to build.
Words will never describe it satisfactorily but it is one of those WOW structures - the geometrical shapes that he has used in the design give it internally an "abstract feel" and is nothing like the Cathedrals we have been in. It also has a very modern feel to it which surprised given that is was designed many years ago.
Externally it reminds of the Gothic shaped churches we saw in Germany on our first trip to Europe.
Returning to Catalunya station by Metro and a walk back down La Rambla before returning to the Hotel and a refreshing soak in the pool finished, well almost finished, an enjoyable day.
Regarding the Metro we took 8 different train trips and did not have to wait more than 4 minutes after arriving on the platform for any of the trains - Auckland commuters eat your heart out
The day was topped by a Skype chat to family back home.
Buenas noches
The first port of call was to an information kiosk at the port area to get an understanding of the transport system - shunned the hop on hop off buses in favour of the Metro.
Rambled up La Rambla a street which has a pedestrian precinct running up the middle with various touristy type stalls until we arrived at Mercat de la Boqueira a market which has been in existence since 1840.
Then it was onto the Metro to get to Sagrada Familia.
Park Guell is on the side of a hill some 4kms from downtown and is a park that contains the house where Gaudi lived the last 20 years of his life and also contains examples of his architectural use of ceramics.
The house is a museum containing examples of his furniture design which was another string to his bow.
Antoni Gaudi designed this church in the later 1800's and the construction of it is not expected to be completed until 2026 at current progress which means it will have taken over 100 years to build.
Words will never describe it satisfactorily but it is one of those WOW structures - the geometrical shapes that he has used in the design give it internally an "abstract feel" and is nothing like the Cathedrals we have been in. It also has a very modern feel to it which surprised given that is was designed many years ago.
Externally it reminds of the Gothic shaped churches we saw in Germany on our first trip to Europe.
Returning to Catalunya station by Metro and a walk back down La Rambla before returning to the Hotel and a refreshing soak in the pool finished, well almost finished, an enjoyable day.
Regarding the Metro we took 8 different train trips and did not have to wait more than 4 minutes after arriving on the platform for any of the trains - Auckland commuters eat your heart out
The day was topped by a Skype chat to family back home.
Buenas noches
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