Saturday 10th October - The Walking Bike Tour! At this stage we still had not mounted the bikes and anyway the alleys were so narrow that more than just the big fat girl in our group would have fallen over. (Something that she did twice that I saw). Anyway we walked downhill to the La Catedral. This impressive Catalan Gothic church, begun in 1298 is built on the site of a Roman temple and houses the tomb of Saint Eulàlia, the first patron saint of Barcelona...

Saturday 10th October - Plaza del Rei Our first stop was Plaza del Rei which was at the end of a very narrow alley and because of that we wheeled our bikes to this point. Plaza del Rei is this wholly preserved medieval courtyard of the Palau Reial (Royal Palace) is where Ferdinand and Isabella are supposed to have received Columbus on his return from the New World. Our guide was a bit of a character and described the meeting of Christopher Columbus and Qu...

Saturday 10th October - Placa Sant Jaume Located at the center of the original Roman settlement of Barcino, this plaza is home to the Ajuntament, (City Hall) and the Palau de la Generalitat (seat of the Catalan regional government). If the locals have a problem with the Local Government then they go to the building on one side of the square. If the problem is with Spain then they go to the building on the other side. There were lots of people waiting a...

Saturday 10th October - Last Day in Barcelona. We had our usual breakfast and headed out for coffee. We hadn't been able to book the bike tour with Fat Tyre Bikes online and Jannie was very sceptical that by just going to the meeting place we would get on the tour. But we set off and had our usual coffee at SMS and then headed for the Metro Station to get the train to Liceu from where we walked to the meeting place All tours meet at Plaça Sant Jaume i...

Friday 9th October - Lunch and a Walk Back to Born. We shared three plates of tapas and had a beer each for €10. And afterwards we walked through the streets looking for the shop that had Campers shoes. We got to the shop and they were too expensive so we headed all of the way back to Liceu where we had seen another shoe shop and we were in luck. Because we didn't get lost along the way that man deserves a beer so we sort a beer stop in a small plaza ...