Our trip from Colorado Springs to Barcelona was fine. We arrived at about 8:30 (30 minutes early, collected out bags, found a cab and went to our hotel. It pays to be a regular customer of a hotel chain and have some status because they had a room ready for us, upgraded to the top floor with a city view. The tall building on the left is a new church being built that has spectacular architecture. We will visit that for a tour on Tuesday so keep reading to find out about that.
The couple in line in front of us were told their room wouldn't be ready for a few hours. We were thankful we could stash our luggage, rinse off the in the shower, and change for what Chuck calls the "death march." It is very important to stay awake and get as much sun as you can the first day in Europe in order to reset you body clock. So, about 11 we headed off to stay awake and keep moving.
Barcelona is a mix of an old city with hints of Paris--lots of wide boulevards with sidewalk cafes with small streets on the sides. However, the architecture is much more diverse. We are not sure what the building below is, but people were buying tickets to go inside and view it. Caroline thought that Rapunzel might pop out of the top balcony and let down here hair. In fact, people did come out onto that balcony and take pictures.
Just down the street there was another example of art. We don't know what the building was, but the top was unique in my experience for sure.
It was Sunday AM and the streets were pretty quite until we found the old town where the density of tourists was high and the shops were selling the usual tourist stuff. It was beautiful for wandering around and seeing the sights. Our bodies began to flag so we headed back. We found a place to have lunch (mediocre at best) and got back to the hotel where we took a much needed 1.5 hour nap. Chuck, the ogre, made sure we were up and moving after that or our sleep patterns would have been really disturbed.
We pondered our options for the rest of the day. There is a beautiful lighted fountain display that starts at 9PM and runs about 30 minutes. We were pretty sure we didn't want to stay up that late. We settled on "Ballet Flamenco de Madrid." We got tickets and had a light supper across the street (much better than lunch). The theater was beautiful. The crowd was sparse so they seated everyone on the main floor (we had purchased balcony seats). The performance is hard to explain. Some of it was dancing to the music of Bizet's opera Carmen. Some was live Flamenco music (flute, vocals, guitar, and a percussion instrument that looks like a box) and dancing. Even the dancing to Carmen had a flamenco feel to it. The dancers were incredible. It was very well done and rowdy enough to keep us mostly awake. A perfect end to our first day in Barcelona.
Well, it wasn't quite the end. We had a Magnum bar on our way back to the hotel. Magnum bars are the best.
Chuck found free wifi at a terrace bar at the hotel and synched our laptops with the world while sipping a beer.
Lights out at 9:30.