Barcelona

It took us a little bit to get to our hostel from the airport. The directions that I had written down were for taking the bus, and we had only found the metro transport. But Alan had booked us a hostel in prime location - right off of Las Ramblas, one of the main streets in downtown Barcelona.

Alan under his tree

After orienting ourselves, we headed for the Picasso Museum. It is free to enter on the first Sunday of each month, so the line stretched all the way down the narrow, pedestrian-only street. Fortunately, it was a quick-moving line, and so we got in after waiting less than an hour. The museum was organized chronologically, which I always like, and well-kept. It didn't hold any of Picasso's work with which I was familiar. Most of his more famous stuff was done after he had left Barcelona for Paris. There were several pieces at the museum that I never would have identified with Picasso - some of his earlier work, before his Blue Period or Cubism.

Then we went north several blocks to the Parc de la Ciutadella. It's huge and beautiful and very crowded with locals. Alan found a nice tree and took a nap, as he hadn't been able to sleep on the plane the night before.

The most well-known part of Park Guell

We celebrated the Fourth of July with Gaudi! We saw the impressive Casa Batlló and La Pedrera from the outside. Then we started the long walk up to Park Guell, stopping under an overhanging tree branch while it rained. We found ourselves at the highest point in the Park, far away from what I had always associated with Gaudi. As it turns out, Gaudi designed the whole thing, and the curved benches and fairy tale-like buildings are only a small section of the park. We saw quite a bit of the area, given that we kept pausing to minimize the amount of rain soaking through our clothes and that Alan required a return to the topmost section after the rain had cleared to take a good picture of the city.

On the way back down to our hostel, we stopped at La Sagrada Familia, which is supposed to be the piece that Gaudi really poured his heart into. The poor thing doesn't look like it will ever be complete, but you can definitely tell that someone is working on it.