The last day in Barcelona

I am back in the states and attempting to recupe some energy after the trip. The trip was...amazing. I am just aware at this point this I am still a bit fatigued. It is interesting that this break...longer than any "healthy" break in my adult life, has in many ways renewed my spirit.

The last day in Barcelona, Leigh (Chris' finance'), Jan and I took the subway to the part of the city in which the Gaudi Park looks over the city. While some we found later learned of a bus that would take them most of the way up to it, we did the steps and escalators up to the top. Later, coming down we found that there were no escalators. It was just over 600 paces, about 500 steps back down. (No need for a treadmill today).  I have quite a number of pictures to share with you. I will do so with little commentary.

On the way up -

Map of the park-                                             Some Structures along the way-

 

View of Barcelona from one point along the path-            

Such beautiful rock work-

 

A place for recreation and refreshment along the path-

 

Jan and Leigh enjoying the path -

Getting ready for the walk down - about 600 paces-

And then we took the subway back to the hotel and Leigh headed back to Madrid---

Saturday in Barcelona - a walk to the Sagrada Familia by Architect Gaudi

Just a brief note as I am not sure how much energy I have to blog tonight. We spent the day with Leigh yesterday (Chris' fiance') and we walked a lot. We decided to walk to a cathedral called the Sagrada Familia, a magnificent cathedral that was designed by Gaudi. We could have paid to tour inside, but we had neither the inclination after the walk...or the energy. The first picture is from window of the elevator in the Barcelona Princess Hotel...and it was even a farther walk than it looks!! We took the Tram back. I will post a number of pictures of this. On the way there we did see another very interesting office building. It had a kind of outer structure that covered and maybe protected the windows...very interesting. More later...

An interesting office building---

 And the Sagrada Familia---

 

 

 

 

And an interesting thing that we saw in a number of places...a rack of bicycles that can be rented. Apparently an account is established on line, a card is presented to the machine and a specific number of bicycle is unlocked. It is ridden for whatever period of time and returned to any rack in the city the same way, the card presented and returned to a specific slot and locked into place.