Saturday 10th October - Barcelona Beach. When the crew all got back we mounted up and rode the 4kms downhill to the sea. We stopped a couple of times to let those caught by red lights catch up but when we stopped at the Barcelona beachfront our guide told us that this was all built for the 1992 Olympics as previously it had been part of the port. All the sand was bought in and each season before the summer starts the sand is dredged back onto the beach. All ...

Saturday 10th October - Sagrada Familia and Then Downhill. We headed off uphill along one of these long wide avenues that Barcelona has many of. There were specific bike lanes and this is the only time that I have been in a bike lane that gets to a junction and there are straight ahead and turning arrows on the roadway for bikes. Jan and I had seen the Sagrada earlier in the week and instead of going walk about with the rest of our group of 16 we stood an...

Saturday 10th October - Parc de la Ciutadella After the War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1714, a large fort was constructed on this site to keep the city in line. The fortress was demolished in 1869 and redesigned as a park containing a zoo, a boating lake, gardens and a large fountain. We didn't go down to the far end where the zoo and boating lake are but the fountain is quite fantastic. Gaudi who was just a young lad at the time had a hand in helpi...

Saturday 10th October - Palace of Catalan Music We stopped at this extraordinary building which to all intents and purposes looks like it was built by Gaudi. But no this is one of the world's most extraordinary concert halls, the Palace of Catalan Music was designed in the Catalan modernism style by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. When Franco was in power from 1939 he destroyed all things Catalan but when he got round to seeing this building he...

Saturday 10th October - Mounting Up and Riding to The Arc de Triumphe. We used bike lanes mostly and if we used the roadway we were told by our guide to be like a bus and close up so no one could get between us. That way we were safe. We rode right under the main arch of the monument and stopped to be told about it. Evidently it was made for the World Trade Fair of 1888 and there was a contest for architects to submit their proposal for the monument. When...