Saturday, May 28, 2011

Friday, May 27th

We are feeling very sad now that we only have 2 days left in this beautiful city, Barcelona.  Today we headed over to the Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya-MNAC-We're experts now on taking the Metro, transferring etc.  It houses an incredible collection of Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern Art.  It is also well known for its Romanesque Collection but unfortunately that wing was closed temporarily.  We were dumbfounded by the beauty and the ages of some of these works.

 Pere Serra - Madonna of Angles and Saints, around 1385.

At 2pm my cousin Juanjo picked us up to take us to the beach resort town of Sitges, one of Catalunya's most popular resort towns.  Because we were vacillating between going or not going he decided he would take us, he didn't want us to miss it and we are glad we didn't.  It was the most beautiful, charming seaside town ever!  Some beautiful, big old mansions built, after the Spanish Civil War by Catalans who had gone to Cuba, started successful businesses and came back here to build their homes.  The Bacardí Family left for Cuba from here.  They just opened a Bacardi Museum here, unfortunately we didn't get to see it.



The old part is filled with old, narrow streets crammed with cafe's, boutiques and antique stores among many others.  Of course a beautiful, 17th century Baroque style church sits right on the water.  There are also 3 other museums and many beaches to visit.  We chose to stay outside and enjoy the day.  Juanjo walked us all around the old part, drove us from one end to the other all along the street that runs along the water and took us over to the Marina and Village.  We sat in a beachside restaurant, 'El Pic-Nic' for some delicious Tapas and Desserts.  Our dream would be to come back some day/year to Barcelona and stay here at the beach for a few days, its very quaint!

                                                                         Howard's lunch.

Back in Barcelona we stopped for a cup of coffee so Juanjo's daughter, Adriana, (20yrs.old) and I could meet.   She was just as wonderful as I imagined from our contact on FB.  I encouraged her to go to CA to meet her cousins.
We had one hour to rest in our Apt. before another cousin's (Gerado) wife came to pick us up.  They had been on a cruise since we arrived and this was the 1st and last opportunity for us to finally meet.  It had been a very long day and I was exhausted but I'm so glad we went.  She picked us up about 9:30p and we joined Gerado at a Sidewalk Tapas bar.  It was so much fun to meet him, he is quite the jokester and his wife, Nina, originally from the Country, Georgia was also very delightful.  We enjoyed the late night ambiance and more delicious Tapas.  Around 11:30pm Nina took us back to our Apt were we proceeded to collapse. 

One more very relaxed day in Barcelona and then we're off to Valencia for the day and Cuenca for 2 nights before heading to Madrid!  We're going to do a lot of resting on those train rides!

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