Barcelona: More international travels!

  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.

The plaza near our apartment

Audrey traveled well and made herself right at home

Our first trip out of the city was to do a tour of several wineries

Now that's what I call aging a wine!

Of course, to go with all the good wine in Spain, we had to eat a lot of good food

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. 

Our second trip out of town was to the Pyrenees, where Auds and I did a little hiking.  It was cold, though!

Luckily, back on the Mediterranean it was pretty warm and nice most days 

Another plaza near our apartment.  Yeah palm trees!

We walked a lot, and saw some amazing sights, like this Cathedral

A fountain in the park.  Yeah gold horses on top of an arch!

There is so much great public art in Barcelona

 

Even the graffiti is vibrant and cool

Lots of bike paths

Who doesn't love cycling AND tapas?!

Oddly enough, Audrey rarely got comments on her hair like she does here in Canada

But she got a lot of comments on her cheeks!

Half way through our visit, my two sisters joined us.  Yay!

We went on our third day trip all together up to Montserrat

You may remember this from my June 2007 blog posting as the monastery in the mountains where Nelson proposed to me

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.

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.

I breastfed near this piece.  I'm not kidding

Yes, that is a full sized lips couch!

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.

Of course, we also saw lots of Gaudi's fanciful masterpieces, including Parc Guell.

Do you like my hat?

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...