Barcelona was yet another stop on the frequent flyer return trip from Greece. We had less than one day and we figured we'd make the most of it. This was power sightseeing at its best. Like our trip to Paris, we planned our itinerary on the flight there. To see it all, we have to start early and wear lots of sunscreen because it was in the high 90's.

We stayed at the Hotel Colon, which is in the Gothic Quarter directly across the street from the La Seu Cathedral. We stopped at the Cathedral on our way to Las Ramblas, where we stopped at Dunkin Donuts (we're Americans, and we require breakfast) before taking the Metro to Passig de Gracia. There we visited Casa Batllo, a fantastically interesting building created by Antonie Gaudi. We were very disappointed that we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but if you're interested you can visit their website. We followed an architectural walking tour outlined in our guidebook, and then took the metro to the Maritime Museum. As maritime museums go, it is a pretty good one with a well-produced audio tour, but it isn't air conditioned so I got cranky pretty quick :) We walked around the port for a bit, trying to find somewhere open for lunch at noon (Americans apparently eat every meal about 2 hours earlier than other cultures!). After lunch, and still sore from walking in Santorini and Athens, we took the "Bus Turistic" (double decker tour bus) to Sagrada Familia. Luckily, the structure has elevators so our legs could rest. What they neglect to tell you is that the elevators are only to be used for the ascent and you have to take the stairs back down. The climb really wasn't that bad because we were fascinated by new sections of the spires the entire way down. After exploring both sets of spires (at a cheap €2 per elevator ride, we hopped back on the Bus Turistic and headed to Parc Gruell. We were both seriously fading at this point but this place was an adrenaline rush. Everything is covered with mosaic tiles - the funny little houses at the entrance, the enormous lizard fountain, the wave bench, and it's supporting hypostyle hall. Absolutely unbelievable. Tired of all means of public transport, we decided to take a cab to La Pedrera, the last stop on our itinerary. Thankfully, there was an elevator to the roof, but again we were faced with "you take the steps down". We think it was about 8 flights, but by this time, we'd had it with stair climbing :) It was worth it though - the roof it topped with fantastic twisted chimney stacks which were perfectly lit by the evening sun (it was 7pm, but the sunset was at close to 10pm). And that is how to see Barcelona in a day :)

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