España

Arrival in Barcelona after a 25 hour journey... In time to celebrate Collin's 30th birthday with our dear friend Amanda and her flatmate Christina

Some appetizers before the main course

A memorable 30th

And some cava outdoors...

Gaudi's unfinished Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia head

Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau

Looking out the hospital to Sagrada Familia

The view of Sagrada Familia from Amanda's room

Curly hair on Amanda's terrace

The first of many jamon bocadillos and cafe con leches!

Bicing! Barcelona's awesome community bicycle sharing program. Amanda let us use a couple cards so we could bike all over the city.

Arc de Triomf... BCN's 1888 Universal Exhibition landmark

Frank Gehry fish at the Port Olimpic

Jamon, jamon!

Sweet treats

Checking out Mercat de la Boqueria

Fruity deliciousness

Like a large hobbit-house

One of Gaudi's modernista flights of fancy

Radio

Man of the night

Man of the day

Jump for joy

Tapas extravaganza

Dinner with the gals

Sangria and tapas outside

Amanda got us a pass to her gym / spa for Collin's birthday

Bikini babes and the S.F.

Our visit coincided with a big Barcelona celebration called La Mercè, which commemorates the Roman Catholic feast day of Our Lady of Mercy.

The celebration included nearly a week's worth of music, dancing, human pyramid-building, a fire parade, and this lightshow on the city hall building.

At a concert for la Merce with Alan, Christina, and Amanda

Love the hot fall nights

The Font Magica at the base of Montjuic

At Parc Guell; Gaudi's insane garden city

Opened in 1922

Spire

Roman

Lovely views of the city

Cava and picnic lunch

Parc Guell cava on the grass

Collin with Jet (Amanda's bike ;-)

Another fabulous meal at Amanda's

Renfe to Valencia... about 3.5 hours south of BCN

Valencia!

Not by the hairs...

Random bits and bobs used to brick up the window

Down the rabbit hole

Tourista and cafe con leche

sky box

Cathedral walk-around

Red dragon above Roman ruins

This one's for Celia

Cathedral: a microcosm of the city's architectural history

Waterfall

Knock knock who's there?

Stunning roof of the post office

And equally stunning train station, Estación Del Norte. This is the ticket counter.

Random Roman resting spot

The 14th-century Torres de Serranos

All that remains of the old city wall

Perambulate

Rusticate

Mercado Central, Valencia's Modernista covered market, constructed in 1928

Picnic lunch in the old Turia Riverbed

Valencia is the birthplace of paella so we couldn't not get some. Random lunch of paella, figs, and coke

Note hotel rental bike

Skate park with Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias in background

Designed by the world-famous (and Valencia native) Santiago Calatrava

Vaguely described as an "entertainment-based cultural and architectural complex"

These pictures really don't do it justice

We were going to take more pictures on the way back...but I'll tell you about that later

Skeleton

My first Mediterranean experience. This was just down the beach from the America's Cup village.

And while we were frolicking in the ocean those 45 minutes, someone came along, cut the locks on our bikes, and stole them! ARG! We had to go to the nearest police station and file a report... An unforgettable experience to say the least. Collin did admirably well with his high school Spanish and nary an English speaker in sight.

So we were unfortunately out of $300 for the bikes, but were comforted by some red wine and the lovely view out of our hotel room

Here's the view! A 15th century palace that houses the Museo de Ceramica on the right.

Night fountain

Another shot of the Museo Nacional de Ceramica

Rainy alley

Cat House

Pony House?

Green Graffiti

An archaeologist's paradise . . . random ruins

Train back north to Barcelona

At the Picasso Museum.. insanity on a free day!

Bicing abstract

Now that's a glass of vino. And on an unrelated side-note, I believe this is the night Collin was pick-pocketed on the metro... which ended up not being as bad as we thought it might be. Perhaps a favorite Spanish pastime? That's okay, we still love you anyway.

Terrace Life

Dinner happiness

Random preschool field trip to the... winery?!. . . Might I add "worst wine tour ever"? It was like a Disneyland ride that included holograms and something called the "tunnel of seasons" that emitted various scents to evoke times of the year. Gross.

Montserrat & Pujols bus before taking the rack railway to the top

This one is for Stella!

Montserrat is about an hour away from BCN and is the site of a Benedictine abbey.

According to some, this is where the holy grail resides (but you had to pay money to see it, so we didn't)

Montserrat is Catalan for "serrated mountain"

Seriously the smallest hummingbird I've ever seen . . . can you spot it here? I looked it up and it's actually not a bird, but a moth! It's called a Hummingbird Hawk-Moth.

Nice place to rest

This makes me nervous

Fuzzy view

The out of place restaurant next to the monestary

Had a great lunch and meandering around then went down to the beach!

To Sitges! A sweet artist / fisherman / carnival destination with lots of cool modernist buildings

Apparently the Bacardi guy is from this town

Mediterranean castle fortress

Wave Crash!

Warm sea frolic

Church by the sea

Back in BCN with some OJ on the terrace

Amanda's building

Montjuïc Castle: towering over the city since 1640

View from the top of the castle . . . Olympic village on other side

A rough bike ride up

At the Barcelona Pavillion designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in 1929. Several critics, historians and modernists have declared it "the most beautiful building of the century"

Start of the craziness at Champagneria

Enjoying our little sandwiches and cava by the water

The culmination of the La Merce events: the Correfoc, which is apparently some sort of Catalonian fire run

And slightly terrifying, I might add...

You're watching it go by, then all of a sudden they start pointing their giant sparklers into the crowd. Thankfully I wasn't wearing my dress made out of matchsticks

A little Cuban music in the afternoon... What a wonderful trip! Many thanks to Amanda!