Basking in Barcelona

Barcelona; home of hedonism (as we were to discover) and hangovers, Negros paella and cava, Gaudi and terracotta views, not to mention little leather-clad gnomes fondly known as Arse Midgets!. It was much more fun the second time around with partners in crime, I mean check out this guy, he's cartwheeling for joy!!

 Gaudi's Sagrada Famalia. His most famous achievement, still incomplete but looking quite stunning. Mind the hoards of tourists and just look up I say....

Holy water vessel, maritime style...

Terracotta Town!

Gaudi was all about styling his buildings around the lessons he'd learnt in nature. What better tried and tested source than what has been working in the natural world for.... well, ever! Here's one of many spiral staircases in the cathedral, both beautiful and functional and if you need to speak to someone down the bottom, you merely need to hang your head over the side and shout!

 ...and in one of his apartments, he build a little mushroom-shaped fire nook complete with snuggle seats. One (on the right) for the amorous couple and the opposite for the chaperon. Boooooooring!!!

 The front room in the apartment, all looking a bit Neptune influenced. I'd live there if you wanted me to!

The centre light shaft that ran the six floors of the apartment was designed to send light in and heat out. Note the darker blue tiles up higher where there was plenty of light and paler tiles down low where it was sun-poor. He was a sustainable genius way ahead of his time!

That night we decided to do a bar crawl of as many groovy Catalan bars as we could find. The first (and our favourite) was Barcelona's oldest cocktail bar complete with penguin-clad bar staff and fabulous cocktails called white ladies... I figured, considering my dress, I should indulge.

Another of Gaudi's apartments, this time situated in Park Guell which we reluctantly dragged our sorry arses around with the weight of the white-lady-induced hangovers and the beating sun on our shoulders. This 'busker' is really a live man inside. In my state, I felt sick at the thought of hiding in that suit and hanging out in the street all day. I took my hat off to him, as he couldn't do it himself obviously...

Negros Paella. Barks took the experimental bullet. It wasn't to my taste, certainly going on looks anyway, but he seemed to like it, even sporting purple lips for the rest of the afternoon in remembrance of the meal!

We were about to head out of town, Jan had hit the airport forced to face that dreaded institution commonly known as work and Barks and I were looking down the barrel of a week on the road in the South of France. We realised with shock at Barcelona Sans whilst waiting for our train that we had neglected to try the local cava (bubbly) so Spain being Spain, we bought some at the station. Salute!

Adios Barcelona, its time to get ourselves to the little yellow train and chug our way over the Pyrenees, old-skool style and into France! Ole!!!