geriandlennyblog: Sunday May 15th Barcelona

Sunday May 15^th

We woke up late. The dark shade made it easy. We had breakfast at a small coffee shop near the hotel. Not bad but we need more. Our first trip was by subway ( our favorite means of travel besides walking). We went to the Cathedral of Barcelona also called the Cathedral of the Seu, 14th century. We did not go in but were there to see the Saradana Dances that happen every Sunday at noon. Locals of all ages form a circle and dance to the music of a large band with lots of Oboes. The dance is a symbol of Catalan unity. It was recommended in Fodor’s as a Zorba the Greek style dance. It was more like a slow Hora. Worth seeing. We then went to the Fundacio Miro. This is a wonderful museum of Joan Miro’s work. We had to travel there by Metro and Funicular. We got there late for a Sunday and only stayed 1.5 hours but worth it. The views from the museum and the display of his work is quite amazing.

We returned back by the funicular which is part of the subway system and made our way to a long pedestrian street in the Poble Sec area. This is a nice neighborhood with lots of cafes. We had a nice meal of tuna and a mushroom risotto. We were stuffed. Then we made our way back to the beach area near our hotel called the Barcelonetta. This is a huge tourist beach area of hundreds of restaurants, all seemingly with the same menus. We walked along the beach trying to decide where to go for dinner. The beach was packed with people eating and strolling and actually swimming in the cold ocean water.

Today we walked our feet off putting on about 16000 steps which is over 8 miles. We got back to our room at about 7:30 and rested for a few hours. Not very hungry, we did go for a pizza at one of the local beach places but we were unimpressed. We tried to get into the Casino next to our hotel but were turned away since we didn’t have our passports with us. While we can do some internet work, our Outlook is not working and that is causing Geri some frustration with her work and the hotel tech support has not been able to help, at least, not so far.

We are keeping Spain hours, getting up later than usual, out for most of the day, back in the afternoon for a rest, dinner around 10:00 p.m. It is amazing how busy the restaurants are at this hour; they are actually just revving up when we are ready to leave the restaurant.