Barcelona, Day 2

This was it. Last day in Europe.

And guess what? It did NOT rain all day! It looked like it might this morning, but it really never did. That made us happy.

We woke up early this morning to go catch the start of the Tour de France stage on Muntanya de Montjuic. The staging area was just in front of the Palau Nacional. The schedule online said the staging would occur around 9:25, so we decided to show up an hour early to be safe. There were quite a few people there when we showed up, but still plenty of room to find a place to see the racers. We decided to stand very near the starting line, where the staging area would be.

At 9:05, pretty much on time, the caravan started. This is basically a parade of cars and some float-like automobiles of all of the different sponsors of the race. Lots of loud music and people screaming into microphones. I don’t really know what their purpose is, but they were in front of the racers yesterday, too.

9:25 comes around, and no racers. The staging didn’t end up happening until almost an hour later. The racers started coming close to the staging area at around 10, but the announcers at the main stage kept talking and talking to certain racers. But they finally gathered together at the starting line in front of us. It was a huge mass of racers on bikes, and it was really cool to see. I also managed to catch the leader wearing the yellow jersey at the front of the group. And then they were off to race up mountains.

After that, I went and bought a Tour de France T-shirt (I wanted something since I highly doubt I’ll ever see the race again), and we decided to walk around the rest of Montjuic. We went and saw the Olympic Stadium and we walked all the way up to Castell de Montjuic. Up there was an amazing view of the entire city. Let me tell you, Barcelona is HUGE. I got many pictures of the views, and even some of the sea. It was a phenomenal sight.

We had lunch up there at the castle. The little restaurant had a combo lunch where you could get paella, a dessert, and a drink, so that’s what I did. Surprisingly, the lunch was very tasty. I loved how the rice was spiced in the paella. I also had a piece of chocolate cake that was delicious.

After lunch we walked down Montjuic and hopped into the nearest subway station to ride to Sagrada Familia. I really didn’t know what to expect, but two of my friends told me to go there. So we did. And our jaws dropped to the floor when we saw it. We thought St. Stephens was a beautiful cathedral, but this topped that. It’s hard to describe, but the front of the cathedral looked like it was carved out of a massive hunk of rock (for all I know, it may have been, which would explain why it looked like that). It was just so gorgeously decorated (I can’t think of any other way to explain it). I hope my pictures do it justice.

There was a tour inside the cathedral, but we were trying to conserve our Euros for the taxi ride to the airport tomorrow morning (so we can skip the “every 30 minutes” train). It would have been awesome to go inside, though.

After that we walked down to the Arc de Triomf, passing the Place de Toros Monumental on the way. I always like seeing things like that. It was in a nice little park, too. From there we walked to the cathedral in the Barri Gotic area, and ended up wandering around that area, too. After that we headed back to the hotel to relax for a while before dinner, because we were pretty beat up and exhausted from everything we have done lately. There was a huge cruise ship just outside our window.

For dinner, we ended up going to a tapas place that was recommended by the concierge of our hotel. I’ve actually never had tapas before, but I knew how it worked (you pretty much order multiple small dishes and share them). However, we decided not to share and just got what we wanted. I ended up getting a four-cheese montedita (spelling and right word?), a Spanish omelet, and a chorizo and cheese flouta. All of it was incredible. I’ve got to get me some chorizo when I get home!

Afterwards, we just walked back down La Rambla to get back to the hotel. Now it’s time to pack and prepare to come home.

It’s been an amazing (just over) two weeks here in Europe. I am so grateful that I was able to come over here and experience everything that I did. I just wish I had a little bit more time in certain cities. I really hope I make it back over here in the future to hit some more cities that I haven’t seen yet. It is definitely a trip that I will always remember.

With that said, I’m also ready to come home, too.

Thanks to everyone that read this while I was over here. I hope you enjoyed reading about my exploits and much as I enjoyed experiencing them.

I’ll post one more entry tomorrow when I get to my apartment so everyone knows I’m back home safe. Also, be sure to keep checking as I will eventually post links to the pictures after I upload them. I’ll post a link for each city instead of waiting for every single picture to be uploaded.

(This post was actually posted at 9:45 PM Barcelona time.)