Europe 2011 - Day 1

The living room

 We left Bloomington on Monday evening and stayed at the Chicago O’Hare Marriott. Then it was onto the airport early Tuesday morning where we took American Airlines to New York. The flight was great but then we had a 7 hour lay over and was that long. But, we finally boarded the flight to Barcelona at 9:00pm Tuesday evening for the overnight flight to Barcelona..

We arrived in Barcelona at 10:30am and were to the Hotel Arts, Ritz-Carlton by noon. Our room wasn’t ready and so they upgraded us to a suite, and what a suite it is. It is on the corner of the 29th floor with windows looking out at the harbor and the water beyond and then the city out the other side. We have two, count them two baths, a living room and a huge bedroom with two queen beds. 

And it even has three phones and two refrigerators.

The view from the bedroom

There are switches everywhere including a switch to automatically lower the drapes – what fun. The room is 625 square feet and normally rents for $725.00 a night!!  We will never see it, but the penthouse rents for $17,000 a night - this is truly the fanciest hotel that we have every stayed in.

By 1:30pm we had our bags, changed and were off to see the city. Our plan today was to finish seeing the famous buildings of the famous designer Gaudi. We first went to the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia which was just concentrated by the Pope earlier to see hope far they had come in completing the Basilica since we were there a couple of years ago. It was started in 1882 and it has another 30 to 80 years to completion, depending on the funding.  We went to the top of one of the towers and were we ever high up.

The bedroom

Then we went to see a massive park designed y Gaudi and two of his most famous homes in the city.

By then it was time to go back to the hotel and find somewhere to eat. We ate at an outdoor restaurant and were back in the hotel at about 9pm. We have only been up since Tuesday morning and we are crashing.

Thanks to everyone back home who are making this trip possible.

Night for tonight.


Inside the Gaudi Church



The Church form the outsie

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