Barcelona Day Four

On our last day in Barcelona, we headed to the beach.  Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly beach weather.....

On the way there, we ran into another parade.

This one seemed to be celebrating Latin American/Spanish speaking countries.

This is what happens when you let short people take your picture....

Little poser.

We enjoyed lunch at a nice outdoor cafe right on the beach.  And some sangria!

It was a great trip!  It wasn't a ton of sunshine, but enough to help get us through the rest of this miserable Belgian winter.

Barcelona Day Three

On our third day in Barcelona, we decided to explore part of the old city.

 We walked by some graffiti.....oh wait!  That's a PICASSO on the side of a building.

We visited the Cathedral.

 

There was a courtyard inside with some geese and a fish pond.

We wandered around some more and found an old Roman Wall....

Found a cellist playing in a courtyard, of which I didn't get a picture, but we enjoyed listening to her..... 

Found a wonderful Tapas restaurant for lunch where you paid by the number of toothpicks (each tapas had one toothpick).  The waitress was shocked at our 22 toothpick total!!  Grace had at least 4 of these salmon ones by herself!

We also stumbled upon a random parade.

 Grace would not let this giant baby kiss her!

Here are the rest of our pictures from our third day in Barcelona:  Day Three

Barcelona Day Two

For our second day in Barcelona, we head straight for La Sagrada Família.  They started building this church in 1882 and is predicted to be completed in the first third of the 21st century.....so maybe soon!?

I have seen lots of pictures of the church over the years from others that have visited, and never really felt compelled to visit.  But oh my!  It is spectacular.  Every where you look there is something new to see and think about.

The outside facades depict the Nativity on one side, and the Passion on the other.

The contrast is amazing.

Here is the Nativity Facade....

And the Passion.....

The inside is equally amazing.

The ceiling.....

Our girls......one happy, one unhappy...

The album is loaded with more pictures.  It truly was one of those places that you have to see and experience for yourselves.  Amazing!

After Sagrada Familia, we walked along and found a cafe for some lunch.  Audrey snoozed in her stroller, while we sat outside in the sunshine enjoying more tapas.

After lunch, we headed to Park Guell, another of Gaudi's projects in Barcelona.  One of the most famous sites is the terrace with the mosaic benches.

There is a lot to explore and see in Park Guell.  But the girls loved finding 'the Bubble Man' and eating ice cream the best.

After Park Guell, we headed back into town and took a walk down the Las Ramblas, which is tree lined pedestrian only street that leads to the Port.  It is lined on either side with shops, and full of pick pockets and street performers.  It's a lively scene.  We stumbled upon a wonderful market full of all kinds of unusual (and usual) fruits, vegetables, meats, and other culinary delights.  And at the end of our walk we were greeted by Christopher Columbus.  Actually a monument dedicated to the explorer.

Day Two was a very full day of sightseeing!  Here is a link LOADED with pictures.

Day Two Barcelona

ENJOY!

Barcelona - Day One

The children in Belgium get a week off to celebrate Carnival, which is usually the week leading up to Ash Wednesday and Lent.  So since Grace had time off from school, we decided to take a trip...our first intercontinental Europe flight....to Barcelona!  None of us had ever been to Spain, so we were super excited.  Most people actually go skiing this week, but we were craving warmer temps and sunshine, and we had heard so many great things about Barcelona.

We were pretty hesitant about flying with two little girls very far.  And skeptical of our airline choice, Ryan Air.  They are comparable to Southwest Airlines in the US.  No frills, you pay for everything extra, no assigned seat....but very cheap fares.  It also flies out of the airport that is about 45 minutes from our house, as opposed to the one that is about 15-20 minutes away.

But it worked out perfectly.  We had no issues with either of our flights. 

We got to Spain around noon on Thursday, February 14th and immediately saw lots of sunshine, palm trees and people wearing short sleeves!  We needed to kill time until we could check in at our apartment, so we grabbed some lunch at the airport before catching the shuttle into town.  We had a little bit of trouble finding the office where we were supposed to check in.  So the girls and I camped out on a bench in the sun, while Matt searched.  Audrey luckily took a snooze.  It was nice to just sit in the sun!

We are really into using apartments instead of hotels now.  It's usually about the same price, or cheaper, and you get so much more space.  Which is really nice since we don't want to go to bed at night when the girls need to.  Our apartment in Barcelona was THREE bedrooms, two bathrooms, a sitting area and kitchen.  It was perfect!

After we got settled, we went out for a walk to view some of the Gaudi architecture that Barcelona is famous for.

Just a short sight seeing adventure, before finding some yummy Tapas for dinner.

Here are all the pictures from Day One.  Not very many.....mostly the girls with their Valentine's Day balloons.  Day One Barcelona