Day 10: Barcelona, Spain

Day 10    Barcelona (bonus day)   7/2/11

We got up nice and refreshed. I met Lourdes, our EF contact who took Chris's place as Group Leader, at 9:30 breakfast. She is a semiretired tour director who pitches in at Barcelona. She was instrumental in getting us maps and information about how to get around Barcelona.

We decided to leave at 11:00, so the eight of us took a cab from the hotel to the Port Olympic Playa (beach). The cloudiness of the morning gave way to a hot day that made the beach very enjoyable. Some of us had our suits on and enjoyed the water while the others enjoyed the shade that was given by palm trees that were next to the beach, by the road going into the beach. The water was nice and the beach full since it was Saturday.

Betsy at the beach in Barcelona




The Travel Club enjoying the beach in Barcelona

We packed up our stuff and started walking towards town. Steve was given the map and he did a great job of getting us toward the Pablo Picasso museum. Sharon's knee did very well. I'm sure it was helped by our slower pace of travel. We stopped for ice cream on the way and found the museum. The adults paid 10 euros while the under 16 crowd got in for free. I guess the more famous museum for Picasso is in Madrid and this one was filled with pieces of his work who were given by people who lived in the area. I think one benefactor gave a lot of pieces and Picasso also did himself later.

Things I learned:

•         Picasso was born in Spain and seemed to do very well in the arts. He was encouraged by his family.

•         In his late teens, Picasso started not going to art school because he felt they were teaching him the same old thing.

•         He went to Paris and was exposed to other great artists and he really enjoyed seeing what they did. He used what he learned from others to create other pieces of art.

•         He was a part of the avant garde.

•         His “blue period” was probably started with the death of one of his close friends. The blue period meant he worked with a lot of blue in his works, which was not common.

After the museum, we started walking toward the cathedral in the middle of town. We ate a meal at one of the restaurants and celebrated our last meal together in downtown Barcelona.

Steve, Sharon, June, Betsy, Ashley, Lacey and Janie

After the meal, June took Ashley and Betsy back to the hotel as they were pretty tired. The other five went shopping up the Portal de l'angel, which Lourdes said had a lot of sales going on.  As we made our way to the end, we decided to take a left and we found ourselves back at Las Ramblas again. We did more souvenir shopping until everyone was happy. Steve and I took the subway back while Janey, Lacey, and Sharon took a cab back.

We had a few hours to ourselves before our 8:30 pm supper at the hotel. We met Lourdes and had a nice chat around 9:15. We all went upstairs to prepare for our 3:00 am wake up call and 4:00 am departure time to the airport.