Barcelona - St Marie de Mar

The only thing on our agenda today was to sign up for a Segway tour but our first challenge was to find the office that we had seen on one of our walks through the Barri Gottic.

Now this is a great invention, a croissant covered with white or dark chocolate.

We are now pretty comfortable making our way through the neighbourhood directly behind our place and into the more touristy El Born or Barri Gottic neighbourhoods.

Its a working class neighbourhood, with kids playing and people walking their dogs.

Stores are small. Like this butchers shop.

Definitely not a tourist bar.

A surprising number of small grocery stores with a full array of wine, liquor, dairy, dry
goods and produce even though there are produce stores and the market nearby.

We found the Segway office and booked for tomorrow at 10am, both of us a little unsure but also excited about it. We stumbled on the church St Marie de Mar a little further on.

The church closest to the port and for sailors and their families.

Walking around there was no mistaking we were walking on tombs.

One model of a galleon in front of the statue of Mary and Jesus. I heard a guide say
that it was customary for sailing families to make a replica of their ship and place it near
the statue for protection. The altar area was then covered with little wooden boats.

Aimee saw a museum she was interested in visiting so she went there and I waited outside of the Cathedral.

Sketching, sitting in the sun and people would start up conversations. One little Italian
girl wanted to know what happened if I made a mistake. A young Italian couple started
up a conversation about the complexity of the Cathedrals façade. Four children of a Dutch
family clustered around glancing back and forth between the church and my sketch.
 

It was the first time I had sketched in such a public place and I sketched for about an hour and 45 minutes with small breaks for conversations with passers by. I was pleased to find I could block out the hubbub and focus on the sketch. It was also very pleasant to have the accompaniment of a pianist and guitarist. Yep they wheeled a piano into the square to play for the tourists.
When Aimee returned, full of the sculptures and other collections she had seen, we decided it was time for lunch. We crossed Las Ramblas and looked for a less touristy area to eat.

You may notice that the Sangria pitchers are getting larger. The first day we had a glass each
and then realized it made more sense to get a pitcher. Today the waiter asked if we wanted a litre
and we thought that's what we had last time. Until it came to the table and we realized we must have had
a half litre last time. Needless to say, lunch took more than 2 hours, and we needed to walk it off.

The restaurant served half tapas, tapas and raciones which refers to the size
of the serving. I had 3 half tapas (mushrooms in garlic, Russian salad and fish
and potato fritters), Aimee had eggs ,bacon and fries (missing her breakfasts)

We decided to try and find Palau Guell, the house built by Gaudi for Guell, just to walk by it but when we got there there was no line up and very few people around so we decided to go in. That will be my next post as I am too tired now and I have tons of pictures of that house to choose from.