On the way to Barcelona we had an interesting train ride. The ride was supposed to be 8 hours as it was, but this one was extended another 2 hours because someone had committed suicide on the tracks in front of our train. That is one thing that I would never have anticipated happening on my trip!
When we finally got to Barcelona about 9 hours later we found our hotel and just chilled for the night. The next morning we started our Gaudi tour! We started at La Sagrada Familia, a church that Gaudi had designed. He died before the church was completed, but the construction continues on without him. They still have 6 towers left to build including the main central dome of the cathedral. His architecture is all based on items in nature so his designs were really out there. I would hate to be the engineer that was working on this church!
From there we headed toward park Guell, another work of Gaudi. It was quite a walk up a lot of stairs but it was beautiful when we got there. There were palm trees and cactus everywhere and the main area of the park had large mosaic benches and other mosaic sculptures and fountains. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day in Barcelona so we stayed there and soaked up some of the rays of sun!
After that we saw two more buildings Gaudi had designed before grabbing a late lunch. After lunch we went to Las Rambles, the main shopping street in Barcelona. It was packed! There were tourists everywhere so we fit right in. Now I know why Barcelona is known for its pick pocketers! If I were to pick pockets that is where I would work! There were people there selling all sorts of things including hamsters and fish. Along with that there were a lot of clothing shops all along the way. We did a bit of shopping and then somehow ran into the Barcelona Cathedral. It has 26 altars and a gaggle of geese that live inside it. We thought about not going in since we had seen cathedrals but decided it was well worth the money to go in! From there we did a bit more shopping and saw the last Gaudi for the day. We kept it pretty low key for the night.
The next day we went to head to the harbour first. The day was much colder than the day before but we toughed it our anyway. We walked around the pier for a bit before heading to the Barcelona Market. When we got there we realized it was closed because it was Good Friday. We were pretty bummed but that was ok. We headed to the Picasso museum to do something inside since it was getting cold outside. From there we did a little souvenir shopping before heading to Madrid later in the day!