I had planned to go to Sitges for a nicer beach experience,
but decided instead to see more of the Le Ribera area. After all, with some of
the best beaches in the world at home, it’s hard to find any better! Instead I
headed out early to get in line to visit La Sagrada. At 12 euros entry fee it
isn’t cheap and unfortunately all the construction in the building detracts
somewhat from the impressive interior, but the museum under the church was
interesting and even had a short video showing some of Gaudi’s innovative
building methods.
The church soon became a bit too crowded for comfort, so I
caught the metro back to Villa Olympica and walked through Parc de la
Ciutadella for a picnic lunch by the main fountain, before heading to the Picasso Museum. It’s a bit tricky to find as the
main entrance is down a little alleyway, but has quite a good display of
Picasso’s early work and how he developed his famous style. I also think I saw
a lady have her bag snatched as one minute she was sitting on the sidewalk
eating an ice-cream and the next minute she’d dropped her ice-cream and was
tearing down the street yelling at someone. I assumed the foolishly complacent tourist had
placed her handbag on the pavement next to her and someone had snatched it.
After that bit of excitement I walked to the Santa Maria del
Mar, a beautiful old church where the sea is said to have once lapped at the
doorstep, before heading back up La Rambla to buy a giant bag of fruit from the
St Josep market for a fruit salad dessert following a fresh fish dinner that
the girls had promised to cook. We even had a couple of bottles of wine thanks
to their friend, Fabian, who came to visit us at the hostel. Followed by a
bucket of sangria thanks to the hostel “Sangria night”. There were going to be some sore
heads in the morning!
