Firstly, thank you to my sister Suzanne for working out the ‘odd’ item on the bill from last night – it was green peppers which we did order but never received and we thought they’d forgotten them. Well, they did forget to give them to us but not to charge us for them. Note to self, “check all bills before paying and tipping”. 

Saturday- we were taken on a tour of Barcelona with one of the best guides ever – Marta was charming and very knowledgeable. 

A main focus of any tour in this city has to be the architectural delights / innovation of Gaudi. He was a genius, and we got our fill of his cleverness in this 8 hour tour. 

Marta was worried Mick would be cold in his shorts and thought I was more appropriately dressed in my long pants and trench coat. Here is a shot of Marta in her very warm coat quizzing him….again. 

At least he wore a long sleeve top, on my insistence before we left. 

The above photo was taken in the Park Guell. So many ideas here for our son Joe’s rock walls and Mick’s mosaic passions. 

We also visited the outside of La Familia Segrada – a massive church still under construction and being paid for my expiation- paying money to have your sins forgiven, similar to plenary indulgences. Obviously lots of wealthy sinners in Barcelona. 

It looks filthy but they are planning on cleaning the surface when all construction is complete in about 4-6 years. The inside is supposed to be spectacular. 

A typical tourist shot in front of La Pedrera. 

Our full day tour included a trip to Montserrat to enjoy views of Barcelona and to see the church famous for housing the Black Madona. 

This image was ‘borrowed’ from the internet. 

Today we had tickets to visit Casa Battló. 

Our friends Sue and Greg had told us this was their favourite Gaudi building and we agree with them. Mick was looking stylish in his favourite shorts and his jumper tied in European style. 😀

The audio tour was very cleverly done as it included a mobile device that showed moving images of the rooms we were in and as you moved the images moved. I took a short video of how one of the built in fireplaces was made to represent a mushroom. The first photo is of the actual fireplace. 

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We had to catch a train to Perpignan at 1.20pm and made it to the station in plenty of time via the Metro (€2.15each). The Barcelona Saints Station is very modern and catching a train from Spain to France is very easy.
Our house sitting hostess was to collect us from the station this afternoon but will now do this tomorrow. We booked a hotel in Perpignan halfway between the railway station and the centre of town and used our extra time to explore Perpignan and to practice our French. My Spanish was hopeless as was evidenced earlier in the day when Mick ordered a coffee and croissant and I said I wanted nothing. Shortly afterwards my cappuccino arrived and when I shook my head apologising for the error she took it away and soon replaced it with a coffee without the chocolate sprinkles. Mick consumed both cups ☕️.