Barcelona / Fri Apr 5

Today we're docked in Barcelona. It's the capitol of Catalonia as well as the largest city on the Mediterranean. It was home to many famous people including Picasso, Miro, Dali, Casals and Gaudi.

We've been to Barcelona before and at that time we toured most of the popular tourist sites. Since today was cloudy and cool with showers expected we decided to ride the Hop On Hop Off bus. At this time of year it has two routes - orange and green - and we did both of them.

The art and architecture of the city is quite beautiful. Even at the port, the signs are some of the prettiest we've seen.

We drove by the museum dedicated to Joan Miro - a painter, sculptor and ceramicist who was born in Barcelona.

The Olympics were held in Barcelona in 1992. This is one of the Olympic stadiums still being used for sports.

We drove past Montjuic Park and the Spanish Village which is an open air architectural museum that was built in 1929. It has 117 full-scale buildings which recreate Spanish villages. It also contains a theater, restaurants, artisan workshops and a museum of contemporary art.

Below is Las Arenas which used to be city's bull fighting ring. Now it's a shopping center with stores and restaurants.

Next we passed some of the buildings that Gaudi designed. This one is called Casa Batllo and it's being repaired.

Below is Casa Mila. It's considered one of the most important works of the architect, characterized by its undulating stone façade and twisted iron balconies.

We passed La Ramblas which is a tree lined pedestrian street known for its shopping as much as the pickpockets who hang out there. It was very crowded today.

While changing routes we stopped at a plaza where someone was blowing bubbles. You can see the bubbles as they pass in front of the buildings.

This lady was interesting ...

We saw the marinas near the port and the beaches.

The bus also took us past La Segrada Familia. We took a tour of the interior on our last trip to Barcelona so we didn't go inside this time. However I did include 3 photos from our previous visit (they're the last 3 in this series).

From our previous visit -

You take an elevator to the top which gives you awesome views of the city ... but you get down by taking the stairs.

Also from our previous trip - a photo of a human tower. It's a Catalan tradition. This is a rather small one.

The photo below (from our previous visit) is of Park Guell - the work of architect Antoni Gaudi. There are winding paths and many sculptures and mosaics designed by Gaudi.