Europe 2011 - Day 4

Lots of street sweepers are out every morning

Thanks goodness we didn’t have to get up early this morning as we had been up late the last two nights and also walked a lot each day.

Today we started out at 10:00am with a 1 ½ hour walking tour of Barcelona’s seafront. Then we took a 1 ½ hour boat tour of the harbor and along the entire city coast line, about 3 hours.

After the tours we got a cab and ate lunch at an outside restaurant close to the hotel.

The entrance to Mar Bella Beach

Then it was up to the Mar Bella Beach for an afternoon of sitting out and walking on the beach. What a wonderful beach it has been and we will hate to leave it. This has been the most relaxed, family friendly nude beach that we have ever been to – and it is right in the middle of the city, not hidden and /or a long walk to get to like a lot are. The United States should be so free and neither words nor pictures could describe this environment.

Back to the hotel then to change for the evening.

The most famous opera house in Barcelona and maybe in all so Spain is the Palau de la Musica Catalana. It opened in 1908 The site was named a World Heritage Site in 1997. We were lucky enough to get tickets to tour the building in the early evening. The building and inside was amazing. It was the first structure built in Barcelona of steal and then they encased it with beautiful glass and mosaic columns.



Locals Dancing



Then we walked to a Tappas restaurant we had seen the night before and along the way came across dozens of locals dancing in the square outside the Cathedral to a band. What fun they were having and the tourists were having watching them.

After dinner, we had box seats for a performance. – Wow was it special. The show was a performance by an international guitar master named Manuel Gonzalez who was brilliant on the guitar. I wish we had a video because you cannot describe his talent and how his fingers moved on the strings.

After the concert we walked for a little bit and then it started to rain so we came back to the hotel.

Dinner

A wonderful day – tomorrow it is the ship – the Carnival Magic.

Our seats for the concert

Outside of the conceert hall