Parc Guell

Another wonderful day in Barcelona but at a slightly slower pace than yesterday although we still walked over 8 miles (according to my fitbit)!
We found a local cafe for coffee and croissants before heading for the Metro and our destination of Parc Guell. Innocents abroad as we are, we thought that a park means you can just wander in BUT (we should have known better) anything with the name 'Gaudi' involved is bound to involve payment and booking!  When we arrived at 11.30 am the next available slot for the full park experience was 6.30 pm!  We didn't fancy that, so just went in to what we could access of the park (which was quite a lot) and made the best of it.  

The trouble is, there are just too many tourists!!!  We are not tourists, we are visitors!  The tourists make too much noise and are forever getting in the way of serious photographs with their endless ridiculous posing and the relentless pouting selfies!! It drives me crazy!  In fact, I photobomb as many selfies as I can.  At one point I was taking a photograph and turned round to find a woman standing right behind me with her partner taking her photograph! For goodness sake, standing in front of someone wearing a red top is worse than having a tree growing out of your head!!  Am I alone in noticing this posing obsession, particularly the 'selfie'? Are we in an age of 'me, me, me' ?

Whilst in Parc Guell we looked round the house Gaudi lived in whilst working on the Segrada Familia; he really was an amazing guy - so self-disciplined and pious.  The house was just what we would have expected  - tasteful, precise, practical, non-ostentatious. The rest of the day was spent looking at the Arenas; this is the old arena for bull fighting, now banned in Catalan, which has been changed into a huge shopping centre with a 360 degree view of Barcelona, followed by a walk around the Jewish Quarter with its narrow medieval streets.  We found many interesting places along the way and, at last, somewhere for a beer and a meal. 

We are loving our time in Barcelona and looking forward to our last full day in this great city - our 25th wedding anniversary - when we plan to see the Picasso Museum and the Santa Maria del Mar.