Time has gone so quickly,

Thursday 4th Sept was our last day in Lyon and we really had nothing special planned but just to have a sleep in, relax and then just wander around the town and sit for coffee and lunch and just watch the passing parade of people. And after a while went back to the hotel, eventually going down to the hotel cafe for dinner, both of us picked the same pasta dish and it was delish, finished packing, early to bed.

Friday

Up early and checked out of the hotel and then over to the station to catch the fast train to Barcelona, although we have travel tickets for all our train trips, this does not ensure that you can get a seat on the train you want and thankfully we had reserved our seats previously as the train was packed. From Lyon the country side started to change, a lot of grape vines and farm properties that the land seemed to be very dry. We only had one change over at Nimes but that was only about a 20 minute wait, then after Montpellier we seemed to be travelling along the coast line, it was beautiful to see the ocean, finally arriving in Barcelona at around 12:30, as we couldn't book into our apartment until 3:00pm we found a cafe and had coffee and sandwiches, then finally getting a taxi to the booking agent to pick up the key, once completed we walked a few streets finally getting into the apartment,
And what an apartment, 3 big bedrooms, 3 big bathrooms, beautiful kitchen, seperate dining area and seperate lounge, also laundry, everything is new and modern, and close to the central city, really too big for 2 people but hey!!! The booking agent made an error when I booked months ago and I can live with it,
After settling in, contacted Carolyn and later that night the girls came round to the apartment for a quick subway dinner, it was so great to see them and catch up.

Saturday,

A really good sleep in was had by both of us, waking up around 10:00am, quick shower and then out the door to get our bearings and shopping, and what a shopping mega this place is, there is a well known shopping strip that is just over 5km long and I promise you we walked the whole length of it, but not only that you can find some beautiful old alley ways/streets that the buildings don't seem to have changed in decades, finally going back to the apartment for a change as we had arranged to meet the girls and have dinner and then on to the magic fountain of lights, had dinner at a Tapas cafe and then our first experience on the spanish subway, thank god for Sheree as she navigated us all the way, we just followed,
The light show was fantastic, the whole area is a collection of fountains that lead to the main big fountain and this fountain is set to music and different coloured lights, the back drop to the whole show is incredible, 4 enormous roman like columms rising up before the stairs to what was once a palace and is now the museum and from the top of that building is a laser light show, I have since found out this attraction has been going since 1930, very clever, of course a very large crowd but we had a great view of the whole surroundings,

Sunday,

In Barcelona Sunday is a day of rest, (although it is up to individual shops to open if they like) and we had decided to do the hop on hop off bus tour, and we started out early and spent most of the day on the bus, unfortunately the attractions we had wanted to see the queue lines were that long it was ridiculous, one was over two hours long and the weather was really heating up, so finally getting off the bus and walking around
Sunday night, and we met the girls to go to a flamenco show, the dancing was superb but we couldn't understand the singing/story behind the whole performance, pity that a brochure wasn't provided to give you an overview, then headed out for dinner, finding a square that was full of eating areas, all girls had paella and I was the boring one having calamari, but we finished up with churros, loved them, although we had a communication problem in requesting chocolate dipping sauce, I don't know what it was that we got, it looked like chocolate it sort of tasted like chocolate but it wasn't thick like chocolate, natually we left that alone,

Monday,

Shops are open and Chrissy still had a list of stuff to get, so first to the post office to send stuff back home ( I think we will be home before it gets there) after purchasing every thing on the list it was back to the apartment for a well earned rest,
Since we have been here the Barcelona weather has been perfect, clear skies and beautiful sun, the people are lovely, very friendly and very helpful, fantastic tourist attractions but we have found out it is best to pre-book them as all queues have been very long,
As this is our last night in Barcelona, Carolyn and Sheree came over and we went to a corner cafe for coffee and mojito's and just sat and talked, eventually saying our goodbyes,