Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain,
and has a population of 1.6 million and is now the
fourth most visited European city. Barcelona is a city full
of art, culture and Gaundi's works and the city even won
a gold medal for its architecture.
It's here you can experience the very best of Spain!

One of the most popular sight in Spain has to be the
Sagrada Familia, This roman catholic church dates back to
1882 and is not expected to be complete until at least 2026!
It's Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece and is easily spotted by the
tall cranes that surround it. Gaudi devoted his last years to
the project and at the time of his death in 1926, less than a
quarter of the church was completed. Since 1940 the project
has been taken over bymany architects and is now a
world heritage listed site.

The Church has many facades and is unique in every way,
It can be appreciated close up or by a far, from the park
across the street.

Around Barcelona you will see more of Gaundi's work,
including the Casa Batllo. A beautiful building that Gaundi
restored in 1905. I hindsight i would have liked to have gone
inside but at the time i had settled for some pictures passing
by on the bus.

Whilst in Barcelona we did a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter
which is in the centre of the old city of Barcelona. Here you will
see many buildings dating back from medieval times.
It looked great at night & we passed under the Carrer del Bisbe
Irurita and walked around the La Mercè basilica church.

Another great night out is to catch a Flemenco dancing show.
This was an optional extra on our tour and included a dinner
and a live show featuring flemenco dancers and a live band.
It was a good cultural night out and i remember having an
awesome cold tomato soup for entree!

After the show we went to see the Magic Fountains of Montjuic,
They have been an attraction since 1929 and the show starts
every 30 minutes during summer and lasts about 15 minutes.
The water jets are timed to go of the tune of the music and
lights up all different colours, we were there on sunset and it
played along to Disney songs. It looked amazing and pulled a
large crowd and is defiantly worth checking out whilst in the city!

During the next day we checked out the city beach and
went to have an authentic Tapas lunch by the water.

Then it was a trip to the Barcelona Zoo. I love animals and i have
been to a few oversea's zoo's now. I wanted to go here to see the
albino gorilla. Our guide had told us there was one there who was a
relative of Snowflake, the original albino gorilla who was a star of the
zoo in the 90's but has since died. After we did a lap of the zoo,
checking out all the cool animals and enclosures we were unsuccessful
finding him. We had nicknamed him the vanilla gorilla and after no luck
on our search i had asked a zoo keeper who said "no....he dead" haha