Barce Love

We started out the day with a trip to teh Picasso museum. Picasso lived in Barcelona off an on throughout his life, and went to drawing school here. At age 15, he began winning awards as a realist artist. School turned him into an anti establishment painter, and he rebelled with explicit cartoons and cubist works. Many of the paintings he completed whilst in Barcelona are housed in this museum, including works as a teenager and his entire study of Las Meninas. The museum is housed in two Roman mansions, which are great to see by themselves.

The Parc de la Ciutadella (castle park) is the big city park with zoo, a few museums, acres and acres of grounds, and the famous cascada (which unfortunately is under repair at the moment). We got some icecream here and strolled quite a bit.

Thanks to teh miracle of advance online internet deals, we´re staying in a 4 star hotel right across from the beach, with a view of the Mediteranean from our window, for less than teh price of a hostel. We took advantage of this in the afternoon to chill at the beach. The water is gorgeous but too cold to get in.

We had a delicous meal of Catalan sausage with curry cream sauce and other goodness, making up for the terrible Buffet LIbre last night that we ate simply b-c we had waited too long to find a place. Catalan food is great.

Finally we spent the evening on Las Ramblas. We got some sangria from La Boqueria and walked the entire length. It´s basically devoid of Barcelonans save teh market, so very touristy, but still worth the stroll.