Barcelona

Stop #6 was Barcelona. 

Not too sure how we feel about here. Upon arrival to our hotel, Blake looks at me and says..."This must be the slums of Barcelona". Convinced I had booked in a 'hip' place (as described by the Lonely Planet book) I assured him it was just the street and the cool places would be near. 

Anyway, after checking in to our hotel which feels like a night club more then anything (see photos), we decided to go for a walk to see our surrounds. 

We walked down the dodgiest, smelliest, dirtiest street, and were greeted by hookers and drug dealers. Awesome 1st impression of Barcelona. 

We found La Rambla, which is easily the busiest street of Barcelona. Filled with little stalls of souvenirs, flowers, pet shops, you name it it was there - as well as retaurants which offer anything from tapas and sangria to steak and chips. 

We ventured down to the beach on our 2nd, 3rd and 4th day here, as well as did some much needed shopping (Blake is definitely improving on the shopping front). The heat here is like nothing else. It is so humid, and I think it only emphasises on the stinky smells that are everywhere. 

The food is GREAT. The tapas are just amazing, even Blake enjoyed them. Which for anyone who knows Blake, you know he likes quantity and not quality. Tapas aren't generally very BIG. But he enjoyed it. 

We visited the Parc Guell and checked out La Sagrada Familia (didn't go in as the line was around the block) but still got to check it out. Pretty amazing architecture. 

We leave tomorrow and head for Madrid to spend the weekend with my cousin Lisa. Really looking forward to spending some time just chilling. We are both pretty over doing touristy things and just want to do nothing. I think San Sebastian will be great. We're even thinking of extending our stay there instead of passing through Bordeaux. We will see. 

Adios!

We named this "Hooker Street"

La Rambla 

Probably the highlight of our visit to Barcelona. 

Fresh fruit ice blocks, you could chose to dip them in chocolate and an assortment of nuts - amazing

The rooftop of our hotel had a funky little cocktail bar - how convenient :)

AMAZING food markets

Parc Guell

La Sagrada Familia

Eze & Monaco

So today we made our way to Eze (a little village between Nice and Monaco) and then continued to Monaco.

Eze is where they do the Ferrari driving. So, as you can see from the pictures, Blake was able to tick driving on the French Riviera in a convertible fast car off his bucket list (his words entirely, not mine). Getting from there to Monaco was a little tricky but we managed to get there after a few hours, a crazy bus ride, a long walk, a longer wait for a taxi, a drive... and finally. We arrived.

To be quite honest, we were both a little disappointed with it. I think the overwhelming heat may have had something to do with that, and the fact that the town is really not that tourist friendly... even though I speak French, which in Paris and Nice has been very helpful, over there, it just wasn’t really. We wandered through the Musee Oceanographique de Monaco, which was good – then did the very touristy thing of sitting in one of those little trains with the headphones and got a tour of the town – only we hopped off at the Casino. See the photos below, and notice that Blake was in HEAVEN. Each car is nicer then the next, more expensive, lower, faster... boy stuff. I was more interested in the window displays of very very shiny rocks...

We tried to find the beach and failed – so decided to head home at about 3pm. The heat really got to both of us today, so much that it’s only 6pm and Blake has already passed out.

It’s a shame we didn’t have longer there to explore some more as I’m told it really is a beautiful little country. Maybe some other time.

We head for Barcelona tomorrow morning and have a 5 days there – it’ll be so nice to finally settle somewhere for longer then 2 nights.

So... see you in the land of the Spaniards xx

Eze Village - Bono from U2 was married in that church. The Village is more then 1000 years old

Look at that smile. Happiest boy in the world 

Musee Oceanographique de Monaco

Some artists' work was displayed at the Oceanographic Museum... Blake liked this. Wonder why.

Walking to the Gare de Monaco

Gare de Monaco - so clean