I was invited to present at a conference in Barcelona this fall, so my
mom and Audrey and I headed there for 3 1/2 weeks. We got an apartment
in the old city (Barri Gotic) as a home base, and set about exploring
the city and making several day trips out into the countryside.
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| The plaza near our apartment |
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| Audrey traveled well and made herself right at home |
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| Our first trip out of the city was to do a tour of several wineries |
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| Now that's what I call aging a wine! |
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| Of course, to go with all the good wine in Spain, we had to eat a lot of good food |
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| We had a rule to only eat at each restaurant once but we went back to this one at least half a dozen times. It had great food, really friendly servers who all loved Audrey and was kind of grubby. It reminded me of someplace on the Drive. |
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| Our second trip out of town was to the Pyrenees, where Auds and I did a little hiking. It was cold, though! |
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| Luckily, back on the Mediterranean it was pretty warm and nice most days |
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| Another plaza near our apartment. Yeah palm trees! |
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| We walked a lot, and saw some amazing sights, like this Cathedral |
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| A fountain in the park. Yeah gold horses on top of an arch! |
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| There is so much great public art in Barcelona |
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| Even the graffiti is vibrant and cool |
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| Lots of bike paths |
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| Who doesn't love cycling AND tapas?! |
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| Oddly enough, Audrey rarely got comments on her hair like she does here in Canada |
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| But she got a lot of comments on her cheeks! |
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| Half way through our visit, my two sisters joined us. Yay! |
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| We went on our third day trip all together up to Montserrat |
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| You may remember this from my June 2007 blog posting as the monastery in the mountains where Nelson proposed to me |
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| I took Audrey for a hike and showed her all the sights, and told her lots of stories of Nelson and I's weeks camping and climbing up here. |
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| Our final daytrip was to the ancient city of Girona, then to Figueres - Salvador Dali's hometown where he created a museum for many of his works before he died. |
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| I breastfed near this piece. I'm not kidding |
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| Yes, that is a full sized lips couch! |
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| A special surprise treat was that Dali also made jewelry, which I didn't know and was quite delighted by. If you think about it, it's just miniature sculptures. |
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| Of course, we also saw lots of Gaudi's fanciful masterpieces, including Parc Guell. |
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| Do you like my hat? |
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| Unfortunately, we all headed back to frigid Canada addicted to fresh figs and pomegranates, not something you generally find in your 100 mile diet here in winter! Mmmm... |
