BARCELONA, SPAIN, May 17, 2007

For the last couple of days, we had discussed going on a one of the bus tours that go around Barcelona in order to see the whole city in one go, but had put it off and put it off, opting instead to wander around on our own. Today, however, we decided to finally get on the bus and see the city as touristicly as we could.

Around 12 (which is GOOD for us! We got out of the house before 2!) we headed over to the Placa de Catalunya to catch one of the buses for a tour. One of the touts for a bus company approached us and convinced us to with their tour other than the more popular Bus Touristic--which turned out to be a great thing! The lines were shorter and we got to see the whole city instead of just a portion of it. We hopped on board, paid our fee, and headed up to the open-air top deck to plug in our headphones and start the tour.

As the bus snaked it's way through the city, we we able to revisit some areas of town that we had already seen, which was nice. It was almost like reminiscing (even if it was only a few days ago). We passed by the Gaudi houses, wound through the Exampile area with it's beautiful facades and balconies, and moved north to pass by Parc Guell. After showing Stuart the hill that we had to climb to get to the park, the bus moved south into the more urban/city area of Barcelona. We got of the bus here to do a little shopping and get a cafe con leche. We popped into a little bistro, had some tapas and coffee and wandered down the street (Diagonal, I believe) and shopped a bit. We then caught a new bus to move to the football stadium and into Mont Juic.

This was a new area for most of us as we had not yet ventured too far west. Mont Juic is a large hill/small mountain in Barcelona that holds a lot of the Olympic venues as well as a castle and other regal looking buildings. We got to see the Olympic spire, which I THINK is the one that had the guy shoot a flaming arrow into it to light it, as well as Olympic circle where a number of sports were played. When we got to the Miro museum, we again got off the bus to check it out.

Now, I'm not a big art fan, so I don't have much to say here. The museum was nice. I recognized some of the art. The guy was obviously talented. I didn't get most of it.

Once we left the museum, we decided to see if we could walk to the castle that was at the top of Mont Juic. We didn't really know the way but thought we'd give it a shot. About 45 minutes and a few hundred feet later, we made it. The walk was pretty much uphill, but along the way we got some amazing views of the city and were surrounded by trees and nature. Not a bad thing!

The castle itself was kind of need (we didn't poke around much) but it afforded the best views of the city by far--we could see EVERYTHING. The port, the beaches, Sagrada Familia, the big phallic-looking building, La Rambla, etc. After a quick snack, we decided to take the funicular down to catch the bus and move on with our tour.

After getting back on the bus, we were all pretty beat. We sat up top and just enjoyed the drive down Mont Juic, into Port Vell, by Barcelonetta, and by Olympic Village. The tour ended up back where we started and we hopped off to head home.

Later that night, we went out to dinner to celebrate Jeanene's last night in Barcelona. We walked a bit and ended up having dinner near home (pasta this time!) before headed on to The Whiskey Museum for drinks. There's a story from this night that includes a couple from Michigan, a big imposing guy, and stupidity, but I'm not going to spell it out here. If you're interested, let me know and I'll tell you in person. :)