Barcelona, Spain

Happy anniversary to us. It was four years ago today that Roberta and I first met at the Baxter Ball at the Coogee Bay Hotel. And here we are, celebrating in Barcelona. Who’d of thought!

Our day started off at the market on La Rambla. Here we bought some fruit, cheese and a baguette for a picnic.

We caught the Metro up to Valicarca and went to Park Guell. The park overlooking the city was Gaudi’s attempt to landscape gardening. The garden is filled with monuments that are distinctly his style and in the middle of the park is a museum that was once Gaudi’s home. We found a park bench on the small amount of grass in the park that was not being used, and had our picnic.

Me, Park Guell, Barcelona, Spain

Roberta, Park Guell, Barcelona, Spain

We got a couple of photos of us and the scenery before catching the train back into town. We got off at Catalunya, where Roberta went into El Corte Ingleses to do some shopping, while I waited in the park across the road, where I wrote in my diary and people watched.

When she had finished, we went to the Picasso Museum. This museum houses over 3000 pieces of Picasso’s work, from the time he was 13 until his death, in 1973, at age 92. Before he was 25, he was an outstanding painter and drawer, especially with portraits. When he reached 35 was when he started painting his cubism and abstract work, which, to me, got a bit samey after a while, and not something I am really into. The exception is his series of interpretations of Velazquez’s La Meninas, which we had seen just a couple of days ago at the Prado in Madrid. Although he flogged it to death this was the highlight of the museum.

By this stage, 6.30 pm, we went back to the hostel to get ready to go out for dinner.

We went to an Italian restaurant, La Perla, where Roberta had been on a previous trip in 1996. The meal was absolutely delicious, and worth every peseta.

After dinner we walked up to La Rambla and sat at one of the terrace tables to finish the night off with a drink and enjoying all the people to watch.