Tarragona, Spain

Day 3

On our third day, we were tired of the main tourist drag, so we hop on our car and drove south. We headed to a famous, but not too touristy, old Roman town by the beach. The only regret, not bringing our swimsuits.

Tarragona Beach

The lack of swimsuits didn’t deter the girls from having fun in the sand.

Charming Tarragona

Old world charm, slow paced, friendly people, and great food were the great way to end our trip to Spain. Tarragona was invigorating and enchanting. It was the relaxation we needed before our unexpected 14-hour, traffic-packed return to France.

Barcelona Spain

Day 2

On May 18th we continued our tour of the city on the hop-on-hop-off bus.

Barri Gotic

We went back to one of my favorite places in the city, Barri Gotic. This is the old part of Barcelonan, and it has a lot of its ancient Roman charm.

I’m not one to know art, but I did enjoy this sculpture inside the Gothic Cathedral.

The girls, on the other hand preferred the swans, which apparently have been living inside the cathedral for hundreds of years.

We found a cool store that sold vintage clothing. They had a Titanic display as commemoration of its 200th year. Apparently this store sold some original items to a costume designer. Some of the items were later featured in the movie: the hair broche, the red and black dress in the dancing scene, and some others.

FC Barcelona

We also made a stop over at FC Barcelona, the famous soccer club.

I’m only slightly familiar with this soccer club thanks to my family, big Barca aficionados, but as far as I’m concerned, this guy is Messi, the big famous soccer player from this club.

Other City Highlights

Barcelona, Spain in May

Day 1

On May 16, 2012 we headed out to Barcelona, Spain for a long holiday weekend. We toured the city on the hop-on-hop-off bus.

La Sagrada Familia Cathedral

 

Crazy Architecture

Lively “La Boqueria” Market

The Spanish are so in love with their food, I might go as far as saying that food, not Catholicism, is their religion. While shopping for some gourmet salt at a stand, the seller suggested sprinkling the smoked salt on chocolate ice cream and drizzling with olive oil. He claimed the flavor was exquisite. Uhm… I think I rather stick to whipping cream and syrup.

Fun Girls

We go the girls some flamenco fans and they decided to bust out some moves in the middle of our park walk.

Bella loves to pose for pictures

Weekend in Paris

I had to go to a couple of hour meeting in Paris on Thursday, April 19 in the afternoon, so instead of flying up and back like I usually do, we decided to make a short weekend of it and take Friday off.  We left from our house on Thursday morning and made the trip through the Jura Mountains near our house because that was what the GPS told us to do.  We quickly realized that was a mistake.  I had been snowing in the mountains and the road was very windy so we finally discovered why Bella has been throwing up so much lately, she gets motion sickness! So about 45 minutes into the drive she threw up into a bag as best she could.  That started a long but beautiful drive through the mountains and up to Paris. 
We decided it would be easier to stay at the Marriott about 45 minutes outside of Paris near the EuroDisney because it has two bedrooms.  There is a convenient train to Paris and we were able to take the girls to downtown Disney to relieve some of the their homesickness.

We had all day on Friday to go into Paris and wonder around.  Since I did not dare to drive in the center of Paris we took the train.  But as we have found in most big cities and traveling with children, sometimes taking the underground metro is more pain than it is worth—trying to find the escalator or elevator, or having a ticket booth that does not accommodate strollers.  And considering the girls are still addicted to their stroller we decided to just walk around the city.  We started at the Eiffel Tower and then walked to the Arc de Triumph.

                   Eiffel Tower                                                                    Arc De Triumph

From the Arc de Triumph we stopped and got something to eat and then walked on to the Louvre.  We were both amazed at the architecture in downtown Paris.   We both went in with either zero expectations (Mary) or negative expectations (me).  However, we were pleasantly surprised at all of Paris.  The Louvre was impressive with all of the historical paintings, and felt it a requirement to go see the Mona Lisa (still don’t get what all the fuss is about.) The girls, on the other hand, got quickly bored from museums.  We tried to go into Notre Dame Cathedral but it was closed by the time we made it there so we called it a day.  After walking for about  6 miles that day we felt like we just got a taste of Paris and want to go back—without the kids.

 From the Arc De Triumph                   The Louvre (it started to rain)                                       Hotel d’Ville (not a hotel)


                   Love bridge? (the railing is full of love locks)                              Notre Dame Cathedral

The next morning we were going to go to Versaille but by the time we got up and went shopping, we ran out of time so we will do it next time.  We took a much better way home and made it in about 4.5 hours.