Thursday, February 11, 2010

Barcelona!



Futbol, Gaudi, and Catalan Charm

We arrived into Madrid's spacious and beautiful airport. I was surprised to find out it is Europe's third busiest airport! From there we puddle jumped to Barcelona and ogled its equally spacious and beautiful airport. Had a bit of rain on Monday and so after hours, and hours, and still more hours of flying, we just crashed at the hotel. 



Madrid Terminal 4




Barcelona Terminal 1
(Look at That Beautiful Floor!)


Tuesday it was still raining, so that made it a good day to go to a museum and a Mercato! The curvy roofed Mercato Santa Caterina was wonderful (why can't we get fresh food like this in PHX?). The amazing thing is it is completely built on stilts to preserve the ancient foundation walls of the Santa Caterina Monastery (that it is built right smack dab on top of!)  After much directional confusion we then found the lovely Picasso Museum. It fills two ancient mansions in the Gothic Quarter (Bari Gotic) of Barcelona. Nice architecture so I was happy. 


Personally, I think Picasso's work reflects the efforts of an ambulatory schizophrenic, but traveling with an art scholar has certain obligations. I actually have to admit that I loved his early work (before he got all cubist). I am a simp and really like knowing what the heck it is I'm looking at. 


The Roof Over The Mercat Santa Caterina


The Crisp Clean Stalls in the Mercat


What the Mercat is Built OVER!


The Courtyard To The Picasso Museum
(The ONLY part they let you photograph)


Typical Streetscene in the Gothic Quarter

Wednesday the sky could not have been a more brilliant blue. We had breakfast looking out over a shimmering section of Barcelona's 12KM of public beaches! We then went off for 4 hours of open-top bus touring. We learned many things. Barcelona is beautiful beyond words. Barcelona LOVES its Futbol (the FC Barcelona stadium seats well over 100,000!) Barcelona is huge. Barcelona is surrounded by mountains. The people of Barcelona are some of the friendliest people in the world. People in Barcelona dress very chic and they eat very well. 


So, everything fits pretty much in Roadboy's "like it" category. 


Roadboy's Travel's © 2010

2 comments:

Cindy said...

Thanks so much for posting! Glad to hear you're having a good time and finding Barcelona so beautiful! Look forward to hearing more about your adventures!

IniquitousFish said...

The pictures are beautiful!
And the airports look fabulous.

I can't wait to see more!