I Will Never Be a Travel Writer, part 3

My third and final installment detailing our vacation. (Check out Part 1 and Part 2, if you haven't already.) I do recognize that there are numerous sentence fragments in my descriptions. It is on purpose to be as brief as possible.

Dec. 20 - Left San Sebastian early in the morning to drive to Barcelona. Our only snafu on the drive was when I accidentally drove into the wrong line at a toll booth. Oops! When we finally arrived at our hotel after gassing up and dropping off the rental car, we felt so exhausted that we fell asleep for a long nap. That evening, we walked down La Rambla admiring Christmas lights, stopped in at another Starbucks for our Barcelona mug, checked out La Boqueria, and had paella for dinner at La Taverna Catalana.

Barcelona had pretty good Christmas lights, but I think La Rambla has twinkle lights year round.

Michael is excited about our first paella in Spain at La Taverna Catalana

Dec. 21 - Our first rainy day of the trip, so we bought an umbrella at H&M. Breakfast at Pinotxo bar, which is part of La Boqueria. I'm pretty sure Michael would have been content to eat every meal at La Boqueria because he enjoyed the food and atmosphere so much. Walked to the ocean to check out a statue of Christopher Columbus and the ships at the piers, wandered through the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter) and explored the Barcelona Cathedral (La Seu). We also checked out a site that I'm willing to bet most tourists skip: Carrefour (a major grocery chain), where we bought Spanish rice, olives and spices to bring home with us. Lunch was simple jamon sandwiches at La Boqueria again, and then we took the metro to Montjuic where we visited the Olympic museum. Dinner (delicious tapas and sangria) was at Cerveceria Catalana. We spent the rest of the evening just walking around the beautiful Christmas lit streets.

In front of his favorite Barcelona sight, La Boqueria Mercat

We enjoyed cafes, tortilla, and pan con tomate here

Mirador de Colón aka Columbus Monument

In front of Olympic Stadium on Montjuic

Christmas lights at El Corte Ingles reminded me of Saks Fifth Ave lights in New York City

Dec. 22 - Breakfast at Cafe L'Opera (good thing we're on vacation b/c I had churros and chocolate again!) More walking through Barri Gotic and passed the Picasso Museum (Do any other artists have their own museums?) We chose to get tickets to the Museu de la Xocolata (Museum of Chocolate) instead where we learned about the history of chocolate and admired a variety of chocolate sculptures. The rain kept us from exploring Parc de la Ciutadella, though we made an attempt. Totally impressed by Gaudi's Sagrada Familia even though the towers were closed. The unique design and architecture are astounding. A subway trip and a long walk took us to Parc Guell. We stopped for lunch along the way at a place that was called Bar American but that served Spanish food and was run by Chinese people. We felt right at home and completely disoriented at the same time. Saw more of Gaudi's work at Parc Guell before making the long walk back to the metro. Tried to see the beach but it was dark by the time we got there, so we headed back to the hotel to find a final place for dinner. The winner was a Basque place called Zarautz, and it really was a winner. We sat at the bar and kept ordering various tapas from a very friendly and multilingual bartender.  Once we had our fill, we went back to the hotel for our last night in Spain.

Our tickets to Museu de la Xocolata were actual chocolate bars!

Depiction of Don Quixote, made entirely out of chocolate

Arc de Triomf at Parc de la Ciutadella (you can see how wet it is from the rain)

La Sagrada Familia cathedral, designed by Antoni Gaudi. Construction continues today as he died before its completion.

The passion facade on La Sagrada Familia

Stained glass window in La Sagrada Familia

Showing off one end of the longest bench in the world, designed by Antoni Gaudi, in Parc Guell

Parc Guell has multiple architectural elements designed by Gaudi

We searched all over Parc Guell looking for this dragon. He's quite famous.

Alone on the beach, admiring the Mediterranean

Dec. 23 - A long but uneventful trip home, again through JFK with a several hour layover. A friend who had been house/dog-sitting for us picked us up from the airport. It felt good to be home, and we were both actually ready to crash when we got to our house near 11pm. Fortunately we didn't experience much jet lag going either direction. I feel very blessed to have been able to take this trip with my wonderful husband who basically planned the whole thing. (Thanks, Babe!) I hope we can return before long.