There are not many cars in the centre of Barcelona so folk get around on scooters, motorbikes or bicycles. This pic shows a common scene around the city. The red bikes are hired by locals on an annual rental agreement and they pick up and drop off a bike at any location. Clever idea. There are many taxis - all black with bright yellow doors and boots.

The Catalunya Square is the hub of the city. There are hundred of pigeons encouraged by folk feeding them seed. The main tourist bureau is housed underground in the square and most buses come and go from there ie. airport, hop on hop off, and local.

A Spanish retailer, El Corte Ingles has huge department stores on two sides of the square. We wandered in and half of the ground floor was handbags!!! We were blown away. I've never seen so many bags in one place (move over US!!!).

Housing appears to be mainly apartment blocks. We saw very few stand alone houses in the outer suburbs on our travels today.

Our day started wandering around the mind boggling food markets just off La Rambla - La Boqueria Mercat.

We took a hop on hop off bus, BarcelonBusTuristic, and checked out most of the city from its top deck. This a great way to get your bearings in any city if you have time. We passed a number of Gaudi creations and plan to visit some tomorrow. We also saw the Barcelona football pavilion - no game on though and not enough time to do a tour. There are three routes that the bus takes and we followed two of them and earmarked places we want to see. The other route is not in operation till March.

We took a walk to Basilica Santa Maria Del Pi and surrounding buildings (see next pic) then meandered through some interesting back streets (the Gothic quarter) to near our hotel.

We had dinner again at a sidewalk cafe attached to a restaurant in Real Square just off La Rambla. Shared tapas and paella. Yum. Sangria again. Mmmm.