Exploring the Dynamic Barcelona!

Monday March 31st
Peter had arrived the day before, so he was settled into this great two bedroom flat I had found on VRBO.com in the Eixample section. Raul picked Nancy and me up at the train station. (For the three of us, he provided a total of five rides. He had included this great service in his VRBO.com description which convinced me to rent from him!) 

Enjoying the rooftop!

Peter and Raul

After enjoying a glass of wine on the roof-top terrace, we went across the street to a small tapas bar for our entry into Barcelona food! Among other things, we chose:
-Bread with tomato spread
-Fried cheese
-Octopus
-Wine

We returned to the flat, and Raul came down with his computer to buy us tickets (which he then printed out and delivered to us!) for La Sagrada Familia for the next morning between 10 and 11.

 Tuesday April 1st
We took the bus to La Sagrada Familia, Gaud'is masterpiece (among many interesting architectural projects ). The tour included audio-guides, and was better than my earlier visit with Carol, but only because it is closer to completion! The pictures really don't show its majesty, so you'll have to go see it!!

Afterwards we stopped for lunch at a tapas restaurant, where we ate outside.
Next stop was the Joan Miro museum. I didn't know his work before, and didn't fall in love with it as I had Matisse, when I first saw his work. It is quite modern and free form. In addition there was a temporary exhibit with the typical "Seriously? I could do that!" sort of thing. For example, one was a huge bucket of blue latex paint in huge space of the floor! (Sorry, no photos allowed, so my description will have to do!)
Peter and I walked around the gardens some before we took the bus back to our neighborhood. (We were very centrally located and Barcelona has great public transport !)

 Wednesday April 2nd
 The three of us headed over to Guell Park, which Gaudi had also designed. (I think that this mosaic masterpiece helps to give Barcelona its whimsical feeling.) UNFORTUNATELY about six months ago they started charging €8 to visit, so we walked around the outside. That seemed pretty expensive to enter something when much of it could be seen as we walked around it. We had not bought the Barcelona Pass, which may have reduced the rate some?
We ended up in the Old Town in front of the 4 Gats, www.4gats.com the famous restaurant where Hemingway and Fitzgerald and many other famous people have eaten. (There were pictures of Jimmy and Rosalind Carter by our table.) Luckily they were still serving, so we had very pleasant lunch which was Nancy's treat.  

Easily amused that I am...first time I saw this Crapper logo to show how old this place is!

There was an Italian restaurant downstairs from the flat; their sign kept saying it would be open, and we kept going there, but never did eat there. That night we stopped at a Greek restaurant which was pretty good.