Una mesa para seis - Table for Six: Montjuic

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Kimi's Visit February 19th to March 1st, 2016

February 26th, 2016

During our free walking tour with Sandeman's New Europe tours the guide told us about some of the other tours that they offer. One of them was the Gaudí and Modernism walking tour. This tour costs 10€/person and lasts about 3 hours as well. We started at 2:30pm at Plaça de l'Angel and walked through the Born district and up Passeig de Gràcia, jumping into the subway and ending up at the Sagrada Familia. It was fascinating, and I learned a lot about some of the most famous buildings in Barcelona. I would highly recommend this tour.

Casa Lléo-Morera

Casa Amatller inside entrance

Casa Amatller from the outside

Casa Batlló right beside Casa Amatller

Facade of the Nativity, Sagrada Familia

Sagrada Familia newly finished facade

February 27th, 2016

Saturday, we had lunch in Barceloneta and then Kimi and I walked down the beach. We did a bit of shopping and then we waited until after 5pm and got to go inside the Catedral de Barcelona, Santa Maria del Pi and the Santa Maria del Mar churches for free. We also celebrated Kimi's birthday with a chocolate cake!

It was not a particularly warm day, but you can see all the people surfing

Deserted beaches

Kimi's birthday cake

February 28th, 2016

In the afternoon, Kimi and I visited the Museu Maritim. It is of course free on Sunday afternoons. It was a very nice museum, probably even worth the price of admission. After touring the museum we jumped in the metro and went to Montjuic as we were going to visit the National Museum of art of Catalunya or MNAC. It was free on Sunday afternoon, but we didn't know that it also closes at 3pm on Sunday afternoons and we got there after 3pm. So then we decided to do a long walk around Montjuic. We saw so many parks and monuments, it's amazing how much stuff is in Montjuic. We wanted to see the Magic Fountain Show at 7:30, but again I got my information wrong. In the winter months, there is no fountain show on Sundays and the fountains did not even turn on at all. Oh well, still a beautiful place to walk around on a Sunday afternoon.

Museu Maritim

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Bonnie and Dan Visit

As this summer may be our last in Spain so we decided to stay in Spain instead of going back to Canada and visiting our family and friend. For the last few months we have really been encouraging all of our family and friends to come visit us here in Barcelona. I think that our plan worked! Since the end of May, we have hosted 3 groups of visitors from Canada and we will have 3 more groups coming through in July and August.

On May 30th, Bonnie (Bob's sister) and her youngest son, Dan, arrived in Barcelona. It was so much fun showing them around. They were pretty happy with everything they were able to see and do. Here is a summary of their week here:

Sunday May 31st

- parc de Labirint

- Feste de la Cirera (cherry festival) in Santa Coloma de Cervelló (important to show them correfoc)

Monday June 1st (holiday for the kids because of segunda pascua or second Easter, because in Barcelona you need to celebrate Easter twice)

- Drove up to Begur and spent the afternoon at the beach in Sa Tuna

Tuesday June 2nd

- Downtown to la Rambla, Boqueria, Barri Gotic and la Catedral

Wednesday June 3rd

- La Sagrada Familia

- More exploring downtown

Thursday June 4th

- Bonnie does a gyrotonic session at a studio in Gràcia

- Parc Guëll

Friday June 5th

- A bit of shopping along Carrer Gran de Gràcia

- Bonnie does another gyrotonic session

- Bob meets them downtown to explore El Born, Parc de la Cuitadella and Barceloneta

- Flamenco show near Plaça Reial, http://www.masimas.com/tarantos (the show was pretty short, about 45min, but it was enough to get a taste of flamenco and the price for tickets online is only 8€)

Saturday June 6th

- Some shopping at the local street market in Esplugues (my favourite for finding clothes)

- Afternoon in Sitges at the beach and exploring the town

Sunday June 7th

- Afternoon in Montjuic (we discover that the castell de Montjuic is free every Sunday, and now they have a really neat interpretation centre that talks about the history of Montjuic)