Barcelona Day 3: Hop on, Hop off Bus Tour

Day 3 was again busy, busy.  We started off with a delicious breakfast at a little breakfast bar located in the La Boqueria Market (our cooking instructor told us about it). We all devoured a custard filled fried donut topped with sugar. Really words can not describe how incredibly delish this little treat was...it was great fuel for a very busy day! After breakfast we started our hop on, hop off bus tour that took us around the entire city. There wasn't much we didn't see in the city of Barcelona!

Yummy donut treats and cute Spanish boys!

Here we go!

One of the highlights of the whole trip was getting to see La Sagrada Familia on the inside and outside. This is one of Barcelona's most famous landmarks and there is a reason behind all the hype. It's the famous Spanish architect, Antoni Gaudi's, most famous work. The construction of the building began in 1882 and is scheduled to be finished in 2026 (exactly 100 years after Gaudi's death).  Most are skeptical that it will be finished in this time because of funding and structure. The base of the cathedral was not built to withstand the final product so there will be a lot of foundation work, etc needed to support this massive building. The detail in this building is indescribable and there was no detail left out. On one side is the birth of baby Jesus and on the other side is the Crucifixion of Jesus. My pictures don't do the cathedral justice but you can imagine the detail and beauty, none the less. When Gaudi first presented his thoughts on the design of the cathedral to the Roman Catholic Church, they were very hesitate and were not interested, at the time, at it becoming a Catholic Church. It wasn't until November 2010 that the Pope made the visit and dedicated La Sagrada Familia. If this interests you at all, I highly recommend visiting the website to learn more about the history of the Cathedral and Gaudi, it really is amazing!

Next big stop on the tour was Park Guell which again is filled with lots of Gaudi's work along with some great views of the city. I love the Spanish tiles and colors.

Kristin and I hopped off at Camp Nou (pronounced new), where the Barcelona futbol (soccer) team plays. Kristin is a huge fan and grew up playing so we couldn't drive by without hopping off and catching some photos. They do tours of the facilities but they come at a pretty penny and we didn't have much time so we figured we will just have to come back and actually catch a game (they were out of town the weekend we were there)!

Montjuic (Jewish Hill) was our next stop. Here we were very close to the Olympic Park but it was getting late (and we wanted to catch the Fountain Show) in the day so we didn't actually visit the park. Montjuic provides some great shots of the city and was a nice area to walk around. As the sun set, it got very chilly but we, luckily, found a little place selling tea and coffee to warm us up!

The Magic Fountains was a musical, light and water show; a lot like the Bellagio in Vegas. It was a perfect ending to a great day of touring the city.

And because it was our last night in the lovely Barcelona, we couldn't go without one more night of tapas and sangria. We found a great tapas place in the El Born/La Ribera area. Afterwards we did a little dancing and then called it a night before our flights back to Aberdeen early the next day.

Check out the before and after picture of the food. Seriously some of the best food I've ever had!

 Barcelona has my heart and I can not wait to go back!