Locomotoring

What else but Gaudi’s Segrada Familia! Being there surrounded by the beautiful lights coming in through the stained glass windows and the marvelous architecture inside, evokes an amble through woods. On an everyday basis, I might miss CalPep or L’ascensor, but Segrada Familia is what will take me back to Barcelona.

Appendix:

Barcelona is not as tourist friendly as Paris. Trains schedules unravel themselves on the platform. Restaurants are not necessarily open when they claim they are! Getting tickets for events can be painful because of issues with website and/or credit card incompatibilities. However, these are only minor inconveniences in this great city of Gaudi where food is great, weather is fantastic and people are helpful. When one restaurant was closed, we walked into another that offered an equally great meal. The confusion at the  platform was  left behind when the blue of the Mediterranean sea presented itself from the  train windows. Endless trial and error with the websites was forgotten when our landlord offered to gift us the Segrada tickets. At a flamenco dance concert, we were given the best seats in the house (at Palau de La Musica) because they lost our reservation!

Here is the  list of things we found useful  during our travel to Barcelona:

• Camera and photo transfer accessories, electronics are NOT cheap
• Walking shoes and blister protection
• Map
• Cash (credit cards weren’t very reliable)
• A working mobile phone – we got our super helpful landlord to activate the simcard for us which would otherwise have been impossible given our lack of knowledge of Spanish or Catalan.
• A taxi app, cabs are wonderfully affordable
• Knowing the numbers 0-9. Number 23 could be described as “Dos Tres” much to the amusement of cab driver.
• Hello and thank you in Spanish (and not in Catalan since the workforce is from all over Spain)