We Cannot Feel Our Feet

We walked so much on Saturday & Sunday.  Neither of us had too bad of blisters, but our feet were generally sore & tired.  We woke up fairly early on Saturday, as we had tickets to see La Sagrada Familia.  As many of our avid blog followers know, we love visiting all the different cathedrals around Europe.  This basilica ranks #2 on our list, close behind St. Peter's Basilica (Vatican).  This basilica was modern, and Antoni Guadi's work was amazing.  He definitely left his mark on the city.  We both received audio guides with our tickets, and we were glad we did as we learned so many different details about the church including his lighting goals, what the towers stood for, and many other intricate details of the building.

 They are obviously doing work on it, which was disappointing for our pictures.  

 We loved these stained glass windows.  No pictures inside, but just small pieces of colored glass.  

 We love those audio guides! ha!

 We climbed the Nativity Tower.  Amazing views of Barcelona.  

 Out on the edge.  It was pretty scary! 

 Climbing our way down!

Next up, was walking all the way back down towards the beach.  We wanted to take few pictures of the Columbus Monument (Christopher Columbus) before making quite a hike up the Montjuic (hillside in Barcelona) to stop at a restaurant with beautiful views, and see the Montjuic Castle.  Our hike wasn't the easiest, as we didn't really know where we were going.  We found a beautiful garden, and then within time found Martinez Restaurant, where we sat down for lunch.  This was a great stopping point, as we were hot and tired from the long walk.  After lunch, we walked to another restaurant for a beer to enjoy the beautiful view one last time before heading further up the hill to the castle.  

 Columbus Monument

 The beautiful gardens. 

At the restaurant, Martinez.

Jeff enjoying his oysters and calamari.  

At the next restaurant, enjoying the views and some beer! 

After getting a little pep in our step, we walked up a million steps, huffing & puffing, might I add.  We made it to the top, and we were very glad we did.  The castle wasn't anything fancy, but it had the best views of the city.  Jeff really enjoyed this spot, and it was probably one of his favorites from the trip.  

 The entrance of the castle. 

 Beautiful views beach side! 

 City side views! 

We cheated and took the cable car down to the beach after the castle.  It saved us a lot of time & energy! 

We ended our day at the beach again, although the amount of people on the beach this time was insane.  We could barely find a spot to sit! Our last day, Sunday, came too quickly.  Our final destination before heading to the airport was to Park Guell, another one of Guadi's masterpieces.  This was another tough walk at times, as it was on another hillside.  We both agreed, it wasn't necessarily worth 7 euro each to get in because just outside this paid area was a part you could walk through for free. Either way, we were able to get some beautiful photos from this park.  

 Jeff "Lifting" the column

 We met a nice man from Texas, living in Germany, who took this photo. It is always great to meet an American here/there.  

Jeff saw this "hill" from park of the walk. He made it his goal to get there. 

One of my favorites 

 I was kind of freaking out at the top of this "hill".  There was nothing to stop me from falling off the edge, so I was having some serious fear of heights attack at this point. 

Great photo of Jeff on the top of the "hill"

This was definitely my favorite trip so far, and one of Jeff's favorites.  There was so much to see and do, and we felt there was still more we didn't even have time for.  Great experience in Barcelona, Spain.