Park Güell

We started the day walking up the hill to see Gaudi's wonderful estate. It is tremendous and offers great views across the city to the sea. From there we took a bus and metro to the Ramblas to see the food market. Loads of photos of both places to process once time allows. Then people-watching in the square outside the cathedral before hitting an Italian gelateria recommended by a friend of Jemma's. It's a good job I've been doing so much walking because there has been a fair amount of eating.....

Back at Gatwick I went through the e-passport process for the first time. Trying to feed my passport into the scanner in the little cubicle and then being scanned - I remembered to take my glasses off but it still took a while to let me out of the other end of the cattle-crush. I'm not sure that it speeds anything up but it certainly cuts out those costly Border Agency staff who might also spot the folk looking shifty. I know that there a couple of guys overseeing the people coming through but it still strikes me that a big driver here is staffing costs.

And now I'm home and pondering why I scheduled a prison visit in the morning when it might have made more sense to spend the morning having a lie-in to get over the jet-lag.