Sunday 1 September We are up early so we can be at breakfast at or before 7.30am. Irene the Tour Leader, wants us to leave at 8.00am so a quick meal and we check out with our big cases. A 350m walk to the metro is a bit noisy with the wheels on the tiled pavement but we are on the platform for the R2 train which is a special airport service. Good for us, it stops at the main train station at Sand. Our luggage is scanned by security, but not us. The Renfe Av...

Saturday 31 August This morning we have booked to visit Sagrada Familia as soon as it opens at 9.00am. It is only a short walk from the hotel. We join the short queue early and are through security to collect the audio tour device quickly. At 9.00am on the dot we proceed into the "Temple" as Gaudi referred to it. He was the second architect to work on the project, the earlier man submitted a standard gothic-style design with buttresses, very boring. A uni...

Thursday 29 August Today we will visit a couple of places we saw from the bus yesterday. We take the Metro to Placa de Espanya and then the bus up to the National Museum of Art of Catalonia which is housed in the Palau National (constructed for the 1929 International Exposition). We take our photos and carry on up the hill to the cable car that carries visitors up to the peak, and the Montjuic Castle. Surrounded by a wide, deep ditch, this impressive stone bu...

Wednesday 28 August We enjoy a full breakfast buffet at the hotel and head for the nearest Metro for a short trip to the heart of the city at Placa de Catalunya, which is where the 2 companies offering hop-on-hop-off buses have their base. Busy metro, but with the help of Mr Google we don't have a problem and get the front seats upstairs on the 9.30am bus. It's a sunny day with temperature up to 28°C so we takes precautions. The Red Route takes us for 2 hour...

Tuesday 27 August We are off on the move again today, with a 10.30am taxi ride to Luton Airport for our Easyjet service to Barcelona. Luton Airport is a basket case, a very long walk to get to the departures hall from the drop-off point, and security had a queue miles long. Then we had to stand on the tarmac while they got the plane ready, instead of in the A/C in the terminal. We knew the flight was delayed 20 minutes before we left St. Albans, but they still...