Last night I ended the day in probably my biggest travel coma yet. I felt like Sir Edmund after his wee trek, swapping frostbite for sunburn and snow for sand. But anyway, I was tired after a long day of epic touristing.
We began the day by heading to Barcelona's version of the Arc de Triomphe, aptly titled Arc de Triompf. It was slightly easier to focus on without the ring road of wayward cars zooming around battling the crazy drivers who test the lane-less, insurance-less roundabout. But it was an awesome Arc and led down a palm tree adorned pedestrian lane to the zoo, complete with gypsy women thrusting flowers into our arms and demanding 5cents for the flamingo flowers.
Next we headed for the holy grail of Barcelona's tourist activities, the Sagrada Familia, which Millie can now say she has heard of, and seen.
We grabbed a quick lunch beforehand and ate it in a children's playground with the towering wonder before us, not a bad view for lunch.
By sheer and utter brilliant karma I had read the day earlier that it's best to buy the tickets online so after a few minor obstacles (I spelt my email address wrong on the form) we managed to skip the entire queue for La Sagrada, which snakes around the whole building in the burning hot middle of the day sun. We got ushered through VIP style with zero queue and the only comment from the lady at the counter remarking on my travel card MasterCard which I hadn't noticed until she pointed it out, has an image of the Sagrada Familia on it. Millie and I have now ticked off two of the three images on the card, next stop: Rome Colosseum!!
Sagrada Familia was hands down incredible. Best church I've ever seen. Notre Dame, you're out. The inside was crazy, imaginative and unlike anything I've ever seen before.
After our intense churching, we continued our cultural awakening by hitting up the cathedral and a couple of other brilliant historical and beautiful Spanish stunners.
We cooled off on the craziness of Barcaloneta beach, declining massages (obviously) and mojitos (questionable) from dodgy Spanish people, some with missing or additional body parts.
Next we walked up a cliff, deciding the normal path was overrated. We actually stumbled across the Olympic diving area from back when Barcelona had the Olympics. The view from it was amazing. We got the gondola up higher on the hill as the sun was setting. View across Barcelona as the sun is setting? Not a bad way to spend the day. At the top we checked out the castle (from the outside, the Spanish man waved his finger energetically on approach to the entrance) and after admiring the view (and trying to come to terms with actually looking out over the rooftops, beach and mountains of Barcelona) we descended to the park for dinner.
Waking back down the hill, we managed to stumble through a lack of street signs and complete darkness in the middle of a large park to the water fountain display. Amazing. The Spanish people know how to entertain.
What. A. Day.
Fell asleep on the bus home, Barcelona defeated me.
