2330hrs, Avinguda Diagonal, Barcelona
my feet are aching. whilst birkenstock makes great sandals, i guess eleven hours of walking would still take its toll on the plantar surface of my feet.

started the day by walking along the avinguda diagonal towards passeig de gràcia. stopped for a brief bocadillo brekkie, and saw the citadels of la sagrada familia from where we were. decided that we should visit it later in the afternoon as the photos should look better at sundown. passeig de gràcia was a lovely street in l’eixample that led to plaça de catalunya. as it was a sunday, all the major shops lining the street was shut (if i had more time and space in my rucksack, i’d probably be a tad disappointed!). pg. de gràcia also had two of antoni gaudí‘s buildings, la pedrera and casa batlló (a visit which was highly recommended by ash). gaudí is one of the modernista architects whose designs are out of this planet. our visit to casa batlló showed how much thought he had put in its design. how the colour of the tiles change with distance and ingenious window-opening mechanisms were amongst the features seen in the house that made the non-architect in me going whoa. the undulating water-like ceilings and walls just made me feel like i was on acid the whole time i was there!

from plaça de catalunya, i unashamedly stopped by hard rock cafe for a tee. hehe. we drifted down to la rambla, where you see a mercat (market) with people selling souvenirs, flowers and pets(!). we even saw a naked chap unashamedly chatting away by the mercat de la boquena (which was shut, so we missed on some great tapas there). after some cut-throat-prices-meant-to-rip-tourists-off tapas (you can tell that it’ll be expensive when the staff can speak english!), we sauntered eastwards towards barri gòtic, the older part of the city.

here was a shop that would be one of my favourites during this trip – kukuxumusu. as opposed to buying typical souvenir tees with the obligatory toro, kukuxumusu is a pamplona-based (the city where you get nutcases running with the bulls along narrow streets in july) company that makes kooky souvenirs with lembu/biri-biri mental on them. my kind of thing. barcelona’s catedral basílica was massive, and again provided some time to rehat kaki. pity its façade was being renovated. in one of the narrow side streets just by the medieval roman wall were some street musicians. lepak-ed in the cool shade for a good half hour before heading off to port vell to see… wait for it… fish.

l’aquarium was something that ninie really wanted to visit. now both of us can tell whether a shark is a boy or a girl, much to her horror. hahaha. chilling on the beach at platja de la barceloneta was our last pre-dinner port of call. the sun had just descended down the non-laut horizon and it was a lovely respite from the heat. saw a few non-impressive (ie no boing-boings) tits – nothing that both of us hadn’t seen before. hahahaha. dinner comprised sharing a lovely paella de marisco al fresco at a seaside eaterie on passeig joan de borbo in la barceloneta. we got back to the hotel pretty late, so la sagrada familia will have to wait.

i’m bushed.

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for previous spain travelogs, click here:
– madrid days 1 and 2