Barcelona

This is Rambala de Mar, a walkway around the port. Funny, when we got home and showed these pictures to the boys, they said "oh we've skated here on the Tony Hawke PlayStation3 game". They were quite familiar with this whole area thanks to Sony. However we didn't see any real life skaters grinding up on those giant arial rails on this day.


One of the highlights of our siteseeing in Barcelona was the trip on the cable car that runs over the port and up to Montjuic .


It looked a bit scary from the ground. Nice artwork though.


However we hardened up, paid the 11 Euro and took the lift up the tower. It was pretty high up there.


There's the skateboard park again.


The ride is about 2 km in length. This is the centre tower where you can get off if you wish.


It looks kind of vulnerable. Personally I was quite pleased to get off.


Then we sauntered down town to Las Ramblas for some lunch in the markets.


One of the finest seafood lunches Oscar and I have ever had. Jan went with a turf-based selection.


The beer was extra good too. Nice Hat Stu!


The other tourist 'must-do' in BCN is to see the work of architect Antonio Gaudi (1852 - 1926). This is a church called La Sagrada Familia (the Sacred Family). Construction began in 1882 and is scheduled to be finished in 2026. It's a stunning piece of work, I think Gaudi was a man ahead of his time by about 100 years. Well worth visiting the city for this alone.










No those are not microwave transmitters




Fruit




Doves




We made good use of the BCN underground system, reminded me of London.


We ate out one night at a place Jan had researched as a 'not so touristry' place. We fed the address into the GPS and blindly followed through the back streets. The menus were in Spanish and I ordered some sort of meat medley. The white bits tasted a bit foreign to me and I asked the waiter in sign language what it was. He tugged on his ear! My next question was "moo"? the waiter shook his head and went "oink oink". The Audiologist was highly amused.


Next day we took another cable car ride into the hills overlooking the city and saw this church.


Christ!


Nice. However the view was crap due to the smog.


That night we met up with Spanish Bob, an Englishman I met via the AdvRider website who has been working in BCN for 7 years. He rides a BMW G/S Adventure and showed us a night on the town at a local Tapas Bar. No pigs ears on the menu here. Tapas is an entire cuisine; at Spanish restaurants, you (or Bob in our case) order many different small tapas, and keep em coming till you're full.

Mmmmm, try the bowl of chillis - one out of every dozen or so is an 'eye-waterer'. Their appearance gives no indication of the heat, you have to bite them to find out - a bit like Russian roulette. The chilli score, Bob 4, the rest of us 0. Ha ha ha ha nice one Bob.

This is the AdvRider salute, known internationally as FYYFF... (if you don't know, don't ask)


Next day we bid farewell to Barcelona and hopped on the train to Granollers, 30km to the north for where you'll find circuit de Catalunya for MotoGP Catalunya