Tortosa to Barcelona:
We left the Parador and made our way to Barcelona. The drive wasn't bad, about two and a half hours and failry easy directions. We stayed at the City Pelayo hotel (http://www.hlghotels.com/). This was probably the smallest hotel room e stayed in, but we were failry prepared for this; and again, we weren't staying in our rooms much so it wasn't a big deal. In general if you are someone who is sensitive to a small room, you'll need to pay for something extra in Spain, at least from my expereince. All the rooms were clean, neat but on the small side with limited luxuries and failry firm to hard beds. This hotel also included a breakfast, but was pretty limited and is in a weird location in basically the basement. The best thing about this hotel was it's location, it was within walking distance of the Rambla and lots of touristy stuff.
Michael Collins:
We checked in but just dropped off our bags as we had to return the rental car. This was far more difficult then getting the car. We found ourselves surrounded by pedestrians, lost, driving in circles, trying to get directions from locals, etc. We eventually returned it and grabbed the mero to La Sagrada Familia, probably Gaudi's best know work. A side story here. We were wandering around the Sagrada and debating if we should buy tickets to go in, we decided to grab some lunch. After we wandered unsuccessfully to some places we landed at Michael Collins (http://www.michaelcollinspubs.com/index.html), an Irish bar nearby. Now I pushed us to go here a little...I didn' feel like wandering around for an hour to get a quick bite to eat, and the girls were not thrilled. But I have to say we had a great time here. It was really all becasue of the bartender, Niles, who was really funny and pearsonable. Everyone spoke English and it was that, insert swear word every third word kind of English. We were asking him alot of what we should do and he advised us not to go in the Sagrada Familia because there wasn't alot to see unless you wanted to wait to go up in the towers. Niles told us a great many stories of him coming to Spain and still not speaking a word of Spanish, despite having lived there for like 10 years. By the time we were leaving Niles gave us hats and key chains and other Michael Collins advertising trinkets.
Sagrada Familia:
Ok, you have to go see it. It is an iconic Barcelona image. Probably Anton Gaudi's best known piece and it is amazing to see. The pictures below do not do it justice. It's still under construction after being started in 1882. You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia
Sagrada Pics:
Las Ramblas:
We then made our way back to the hotel and did a bit of unpacking then quickly off to the Rambla. What to say about the Rambla...it's kind of like a big sidewalk in the middle of a street. Everyone congregates here and ambles along shopping, snacking, drinking, people watching, etc. It runs from the Placa Catalunya (which our hotel was near) to the Christopher Columbus statue at the harbor. It's lined with restaurants, bars, shops, farmer's markets, hotels, pastry shoppes, etc. It's a great place to wander, especially in the warm spanish weather. Nearby is the Bari Gothic and plenty of tourity stuff is within walking distance. We walked the length of the Rambla then spent some time along the harbor.
After ambling the Rambla we went back to the hotel, changed then headed out to dinner at Cent Onze restaurant ( http://www.centonze.es/en/Portada/) just off the Rambla. A very modern space we had cocktails at the bar then dinner. The food was excellent if a bit pricey.
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