In 2015, our daughter Stacey and her husband Brett spent a weekend in Barcelona while Greg and I looked after the grandkids in Scotland. We had a great weekend and so did they. However, today it was our turn to visit Barcelona.

Our accommodation was on the outskirts of Barcelona as we didn't fancy riding the bikes through the city traffic. We caught a bus in to the edge of the city and then used the Metro to get in to the middle.

Originally we planned to contact Stacey's friends Jarrod and Javier to show us around Barcelona - Stacey went to school with Jarrod who is now a tour guide in Barcelona. This plan was discarded when we discovered, through Facebook, that Jarrod and Javier were going to be in France for the weekend we were in town - b*****! So it was on to Plan B - the tried and true red Hop On Hop Off Bus Tour. After parting with 25 Euro each we boarded the bus for the first of two routes around Barcelona.

Kerrie had marked on a map the places she wanted to see and was soon happily snapping photos from the top deck of the bus - Greg was inside where it wasn't so hot. The first 2 hours on the bus were spent going in an easterly direction. The route took us from Placa Catalunya - centre of Barcelona, to the port and beach areas. We passsed the Gothic Cathedral but couldn't really see it so that would become a spot to revisit later in the day. There were many huge yachts parked in the marinas - one particularly impressive one had a helicopter on its back deck. We drove past the cigar shaped Torre Glories before stopping outside the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's (Antoni Gaudi who was a famous Spanish architect over 100 years ago) most popular and famous work. Only part of the construction was completed before Gaudi's death and the project is still under construction following Gaudi's plans. When it is eventually finished, the six towers of the temple will make it the tallest building in Barcelona. Luckily we stopped there for quite a while because it was going to be too far to walk back to explore more closely.

We continued past Park Guell and Tibidabo. the highest part of the green area which is the boundary to the city. We then went down Passeig de Gracia passed La Pedrera and Casa Batllo - more of Gaudi's designs and both on the list for visiting later in the day.

After completing the first route it was lunch time so off we went in search of food to La Rambla, a tourist hub street 1km long - very easy as the street is filled with restaurants. We then wandered down one of the streets off La Rambla to visit the Gothic Cathedral. There were market stalls set up in front of the Cathedral which we wandered around for a while.

We then went in search of the Big Red Bus again to complete the second route in a westerly direction. This trip took us passed the sites of the 1992 Olympics, The World Trade Center, The Museum of Art and most importantly - Camp Nou, home of F.C. Barcelona where a game was to be held later in the day to farewell Andres Iniesta Barcelona #8 and central midfielder for the Spanish national team - we were very tempted to try and get tickets! We went passed many large shopping centers - all closed as it was Sunday.

The bus trip ended for us back in front of La Pedrera where we found a cafe for our Beer O'Clock break - maybe Gaudi had also had his afternoon drink when he designed this unusual building. We crossed the road to check out Gaudi's Casa Batllo with its roof of coloured ceramic tiles which apparently represent the scales of a fish and the backbone of a dragon. We liked the design of the house next door better. We continued to walk down Passeig de Gracia where all the high end retailers are located. We were so foot sore by now that Kerrie didn't even go in to Tiffany, just took a photo from across the road.

Dinner was devoured at the Hard Rock Cafe before heading back to our hotel by metro and bus.

Barcelona is a beautiful city with a huge range of architecture to admire. We enjoyed our day and probably missed things we should have seen but you can only do so much in 1 day!