BARCELONA, DAY 1

I am really not sure how I want to go about telling you the story, so I will start at the very beginning...a very good place to start. After leaving home at 4:30 PM Friday afternoon for our trip to Logan Int Airport for an 8:00 Lufthansa flight to Munich and then a 2 hour layover and then a two hour flight to Barcelona and then a short taxi ride we arrived here...the Hotel Regencia Colon. It is now 2:30 Spain time and we have been up for 27 hours at this point and knew that if we so much as laid our heads down we would be dead to the world and our internal clocks would be screwed up for the entire 9 days...or was it eight days by this time? So, we got a map from the front desk and off we went. We were staying in the Gothic section of town aka the old part and once we saw the huge Cathedral in the square we knew that we would be able to use this landmark to find our way back. No bread crumbs required.

I have to say that I think Barcelona was my favorite, OK second favorite, place we visited. There is a lovely vibrancy about the city and a pleasant juxtaposition of the old, the austere and the new. We walked until 8:30 with a break for a dinner in the square where I unwound with 2 glasses of wine. I am such a floozy while on vacation, lol.

The next morning we got up about 8:30 and went out to find coffee for me. We found a cafe, which it turns out is a chain, but who cares, we are in Spain. The menus have pictures, no need to get that rusty High School Spanish out at this point, but the waitress spoke not a word of English. I had cappucino and a croissant with a cream filling. Quite tasty and I learned by much trial and error that the Spanish word for Sweet and Low is ...drum roll please...saccarina.

We went for another walk in a different direction and found that the Cathedral, which is under construction from the side you see from the Square, has a back entrance with an enormous courtyard. Very beautiful. My new banner is a picture from the courtyard...so very mossy and green. We have many pictures of the Cathedral, alas many Cathedrals throughout Europe, but this is not a travelogue about the great Cathedrals of Europe or the many tourist attractions one expects to see. This is the story of a middle aged couple experiencing the cities we visited in the most stree free way possible. We made a pact before we left that we would each choose something we wanted to see in each place and just relax. So most of the pictures I have chosen from the over 1,000 are of windows, doors and fun things that will always remind me of the trip. So, get the wine and sit back and enjoy Installment #1, aka Barcelona.

Apparently some kind of political statement

The cathedral

Entrance to the Boqueria...all things food

Wonderful bakeries all over the Mediterranean

One of our sons manages a Pizza Hut so we take pictures of them whenever we travel

I find these living statues a bit creepy, but apparently this street ( Las Ramblas( is known for them. Some are quite good and some are cheesy...you decide

That's all for tonight folks. I will finish Day1 in Barcelona tomorrow.