Thursday in Barcelona

We woke up this morning to hear that there was a power failure during the night.  In order to check out the problems, our departure from Barcelona was extended from 6:00 pm to midnight.  We headed into town about 9:00 am under cloudy skies and 78 degrees.

We walked down La Rambla a street of vendors and shops looking for tourists as well as the locals.  We stopped in La Boqueria a Wal-Mart size food market with international fruit & vegetables, fish, meats, candies and nuts.

We visited the Musue Picasso which houses many of Picasso’s early works.  He lived in Barcelona in the late 1800s with his family before going to Paris and later to the coast of France.  Marsha and I enjoy his early works of portraits and landscapes.

Cathedrals attract our interest as we travel in Europe.  We visited two small cathedrals that are located in the middle of shopping and residential areas.  The Cathedral of Barcelona has beautiful family alters and a traditional setting.   The Sagrada Familia is a gothic cathedral started in the 1880s and is still under construction.  The construction in progress was impressive.  When I first heard about this cathedral I thought some part of it was functional but walking through it proved my impressions wrong.

We had a traditional Spanish lunch about 2:00 outside on a plaza.  Tapas of tuna w/roasted red pepper, shrimp in garlic and mozzarella cheese w/sun dried tomatoes satisfied our hunger.  The sangria and olives recreated memories of prior trips.