Spain, part dos

I've been meaning to write about the end of our trip, but it's been a long week catching up on sleep and settling back into normal life. Better late than never! 

The last 2 nights in Barcelona were wonderful. We checked out the beach and walked around the Barceloneta neighborhood. We also got in the top Gaudi sights -- the Park Guell and La Sagrada Familia, easily our favorite tourist activities of the trip. The Park Guell was super hilly and beautiful, and though we opted not to pay for the tour of the main grounds, we were still able to see what it was all about from the pathways and through the trees. 

La Sagrada Familia was like nothing else we'd ever seen. Just crazy in its detail and history. I love that it's still a work in progress and that a new generation has taken over to see the latest phase through. For some reason, Jason and I opted IN for the tour of the towers -- the towers of terror as we later nicknamed them. We both got shaky legs as we stepped off the elevator and realized how high up we were. Needless to say, we took no pictures from that part of the tour.

We learned all about the "Rick Steves effect" in the L'Eixample neighborhood where every restaurant on his list was packed to the gills and we ended up in a second-tier spot down the street with rude servers and bad music ("Love is an Open Door" from the movie Frozen...I know Molly would have approved, but it's not what you want to hear in Spain). That was probably our only real miss of the trip. 

It was hard to leave Barcelona, but we were both missing Molly and anxious to see her again. The 24-hour pit stop in Dublin ended up being a really nice buffer between Spain and home. We had already been to Dublin in 2006, so didn't feel pressure to do anything touristy. Instead, we walked around the city, stopped for pints of Guinness at different pubs throughout Temple Bar, watched some hurling, and picked up a few souvenirs for Molly.

After that, we were HOME and reunited with our favorite girl. She was happy to see us too and didn't seem to bear us any ill will for leaving her for 10 days. Relief. When's our next trip? 

The Park Guell

More from the Park Guell

La Sagrada Familia -- work in progress

Inside La Sagrada -- amazing!

Last night in Barcelona

Final shot from our favorite neighborhood, El Born

Change of scenery...Dublin

Happiness is a pint of Guinness in Temple Bar

What a long great trip it's been

Hola from Barcelona! This trip has been amazing so far - it feels like we've done so much and been gone for so long and yet we still have 2 nights in Barcelona and 1 in Dublin before heading home.

We started our trip in Granada (southern Spain / Andalucía), which was a really nice, laid-back introduction to Spain. The star of the show was definitely the Alhambra, an enormous, elaborate, part Islamic, part Christian palace complex overlooking the city. We toured the Alhambra for close to 3 hours before poor Jason started feeling sick and had to go out of commission for almost a day. But he didn't miss too much, just one hike and one dinner. The food in Granada was excellent and the restaurants all stuck to the free tapas with every drink rule, so we were able to go out for much less than we would have spent in Chicago.

Next up was Madrid, a totally different type of city. Very urban and busy, but so much fun. Our big touristy adventure was a trip to the Reina Sofía museum, which was filled with contemporary Spanish art by Picasso, Miró, and Dalí. We had rooftop drinks at a couple of really cool bars with nice views of the city and went tapas bar hopping at night in the La Latina neighborhood (crazy with bachelor parties) and then along the Calle de Jesus, where we had our first taste of the fabulous little green peppers with sea salt, Pimientos de Padrón. Yum.

After Madrid, we spent one night in Barcelona, our favorite city by far. Everyone just seems so relaxed and happy here. We are in an awesome neighborhood, El Born, which is filled with shops and pintxos restaurants. We walked through the Gothic neighborhood and along the touristy stretch Las Ramblas, but didn't get to hang out for too long before taking our side trip up the coast to the delightfully weird Dalí museum in Figueres and 2 days at a breach resort in Platja d'Aro. After all the traveling and sightseeing, it was so nice to just relax by the pool!

Now we're back in Barcelona and getting ready for our last couple days of vacation. We plan to eat as many tapas and pintxos as we can handle and also see a couple of the major Gaudí sights, La Sagrada Família and the Park Güell. After that, we'll have 24 hours in Dublin to drink Guiness and feel Irish and then we'll be back home to see our girl, who we miss desperately. It's been fun. Here are a few of the highlights (in no particular order)...

Beach time - Platja d'Aro

Me in Madrid

Jas in Madrid

The amazing Alhambra

Barcelona's Parc de la Ciutadella

Hasta luego!

Our trip is finally here! We leave for Spain tomorrow. I will do my best to blog a couple of times from the road. If not, I'll take plenty of pictures and write a long post when I return!

Monkeying around

Molly had us laughing pretty hard this weekend when she squeezed into the monkey costume from her very first Halloween. I love the silly side of her personality. You can go back to this blog post from 2010 to see a video of baby Molly wearing the same costume.

Crop top with Bermuda shorts

Happy monkey

Putting on a show with her friends. Nothing better than playing dress up.