Day 23 - Barcelona

Note to self: Never book a holiday overseas over the Easter period.

We were in Barcelona on Good Friday and it was one of the most painful experiences I have ever had in my life! We were in one of the shopping capitals of the world with fashion house after fashion house, forget Zara - you should see some of the stuff here.... I was in shoe heaven for goodness sakes - and they were ALL CLOSED!!!!! And as if that wasn't bad enough, it poured rain on us all day! The only saving grace was the fabulous Tapas we had for lunch (anyone see a pattern here?)

Poor Lee was like a caged Lion look but no touch or buy (thank god)

Liv was rapped that they named a shopping centre after her , more rapped that it had a Ice cream shop under it .

Add salt to the wounds of my poor wife , Barcelona's very own Champs Elysee was  named after her maiden name ...(look above her head)


Hop on hop off bus

So, in lieu of patronising the shops and helping out the Spanish commerce, we visited some cathedrals and ate more food... Go figure....

Santa Lucia was unbelievably spectacular, I mean, you think you have seen some beautiful Basilicas and that you're becoming a bit immune to the granduer of them all, and then you walk into another one and it takes your breath away all over again! When we were there, there was a mass in progress and the choir that was singing sounded spectacular! In each church we go to, the kids want to light a candle and say a prayer. It's very cute in fact. I'm loving it.

Even with all the scaffolding everywhere it is one of the most beautiful gothic Basilica you could go into 

Speechless that amazing 

Got to love the lead light 

Gaudi's Sagrada Famiglia on the other hand didn't float my boat. I know there are purists out there that would scoff that comment, but I really don't care. It's a bit weird and a little bit ugly. It looks like Signor Gaudi might have been tripping when he designed that one....

Not a great fan of his work , a great architect is to be sympathetic to the surrounding structures , the rest of Barcelona looks a lot like Paris very Beautiful and to put this thing that looks like something out of the pirates of the Caribbean  I don't know all to their own .

Kids thought it was bazaar 

I would certainly go back with no hesitations the people are great friendly helpful and their town is spotless Ola 

Another one of Gaudi's weird structures

Our last night on the ship and it was a pretty bad one. The waters of Turkey were like glass in comparison...

Olivia hit a wall, she was that tired and her little cold peaked and the sea sickness just tipped her over. Ben's coming down with it too (although I think it's a bad case of an MSC allergy in his case) and even Nic hit a wall. We are really looking forward to taking this holiday back into control and going at our own pace.

Marseille tomorrow. Can't wait. Look out Europecar, here we come!!!

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