Barcelona...(sang Freddie Mercury style)

A week ago we left Barcelona and made our way across Spain to Cantabria. Our time in Barcelona was incredibly relaxed, with a spacious home, complete with toys for the children, a swimming pool and plenty of slow time.

Playing with Lego on terracotta tiles in our Barcelona home.

I even managed to cook my first Spanish Tortilla in Spain - and it came out pretty well! Often at home it seems to cling to the frying pan... must be the olive oil????

Before we left, we visited Park Guell, a stunning display of Gaudi's creativity and brimming with colourful pedlars, musicians and street performance.

We really enjoyed this live reggae band... we even got their CD!

It's a bit of climb to reach the park, not to mention somewhat of a hassle to find parking (all which is at the bottom of the hill) and we probably spent a good half hour searching for a parking building. The majority of Park Guell is free to the public, but the 'monument area' where most of Gaudi's work can be found, requires a small entry fee. There is a limit of 400 people entering per half hour (for preservation reasons) and we had to buy our entry ticket two hours in advance (which gave us time to have lunch and wander the perimeters of the park). If you book online, the fee is a little cheaper and you can show the PDF on your mobile phone. Take note, the loos are few and far between here and queues are long!

Some of the work you can find outside the monument area

It's difficult to put into words the  magic of Gaudi's vision and the beauty of that space - instead a few photos of our afternoon...

Miss K takes a photo of us in front of amazing tile mosaic work

The 'washer woman' and some zunda mochi-ers

 

The 'Hansel and Gretel' style house Gaudi is famous for

 

In front of the famous 'dragon' - it's hard to get a photo with so many tourists!

 

Miss K looks out over the buildings of the park

 

Daddy and Master T share a moment in the shade of the park

A day or so later it was 'adios' to Barcelona and a six hour car ride to Otanes in Cantabria. We were armed with iPod jammed with RadioNZ and Storynory tales, food and drink. Spain's Toad roads are dotted with rest stops, most of the petrol stations we stopped at had excellent facilities. There are also park stops (for picnics and cat naps) - they don't have loos, but are equipped with identical climbing frames, that even in the heat of Zaragoza (30 degrees Celsius) can be beneficial to children in need of some exercise!

 

We have three lovely weeks here in Cantabria. It's hard to believe week one is almost over. We've really slowed down,  sleeping in and little by little adjusting to 'Spanish time' for lunches (around 2pm) - but not dinners (8 or 9pm)... with the heat and long days we may get there yet! Stay tuned for a post on our encounters with the Yoko Ono exhibition at the Guggenheim in Bilbao and an incredible safari park!