Our last day in Barcelona, a city we both feel we want to return to. After yesterday's Picasso museum failure we have booked tickets for the nearby Palau Guell. This is a Gaudi designed house that is a stones throw from our hotel. We stumbled across it last night as we were searching for somewhere to eat.
The word 'house' doesn't really do it justice, it is more like a small palace. Built in the 1880s for Eusebi Guell, an industrialist who had introduced Portland cement to Spain and also owned textile factories, quarries and numerous other palaces.
The craftsmanship and design detail that went into this building was quite amazing.
We then decided to take the cable car up to the castle on Montjuic hill. Our 20 year old guidebook clearly showed a series of teleferic stations beginning near Paral-lel metro station, just round the corner from us. Vera wanted to take the metro to Paral-lel, but it was only one stop and a few minutes walk. So we walked, but could see absolutely no signs of a cable car. Maybe we should have invested in a more up to date guide.
So we walked up towards the parks and gardens of Montjuic hill, eventually arriving at a cafe bar by a cable car stop. There was a loop of three stations, rather than the four we were expecting
After a sandwich and some sangria we were on our way to Montjuic Castle
This had started off as a small lookout post at the top of the hill
But devoped over the years into a fort to protect the city and port of Barcelona. The views from the top were impressive, Barcelona looking a fairly compact city. Interestingly, no work was going on in the large port. They obviously take their Sundays seriously here. Also being a Sunday, entrance to the castle was free of charge, which was a nice surprise
We took the cable car down to the lowest station, and Vera observed that the link to Paral-lel was by a funicular railway. There was no deficiency in the 20 year old map, just in our interpretation of it.
After our visit to the Palau de la Musica on Friday we had thought it would be good to see a performance there, and were booked in to see some Flamenco at 9.30pm.
We just had time for some rather excellent tapas at a small side-street restaurant before walking over to the Palau.
The show was a musical and visual treat, though I felt that a story was being told of which I was completely ignorant. Post event research tells me that what we saw was a succession of flamenco dances in different styles.
Afterwards we walked back through the quiet Sunday evening streets
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