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Hola, and welcome to Barcelona.
Saturday and not a happy pair of campers. The hotel (Cami Bed and Gallery) is fantastic. 7 rooms, an ideal and quiet location but still not good enough to rid me of this cold, which has now got me well and truly in its grips.
So nothing else left for it but to give in and agree to see a doctor.
Spanish not being my native language left some room for surprises after I enquired of the hotel staff if there was a doctor close by. Not a problem they said, just sit there and we will organise it.
A few minutes pass by and two ambulance paramedics turn up, into the ambulance with me and off to emergency. X-rays and a check up, ribs and lungs OK, "slight" infection ( what would they know) and a diagnoses of bronchitis. So 2 hours later and with a course of antibiotics and the doctor's orders of at least three days rest and I am on my way. By this time, Jean has succumbed and is also laid low, (but naturally not a low as I was) so it's a couple of sorry little vegemites that are tucked up in bed, for at least an hour or two.
Sadly, Jean seemed to have missed the "3 days rest" part of the medication and we are out and about the next day.
Barcelona has a really easy pace, made all the more so because on the one day we had pre-arranged activities ( read paid for in advance before we left home) it was the festival of Barcelona and a public holiday, so it made getting around so much easier.
A bus ride to Parc Guell to see the Gaudi inspired creations for which this site is famous once again emphasised the need for mandatory tolerance level testing for all Australians before letting them travel to countries where English is not the first language. One group of baby boomers clearly didn't appreciate the multilingual capacity of most Europeans when criticising the lack of available personal space on a crowded bus going to a major recreational park on a public holiday. Oh well, they say it takes all sorts.....
Anyway, compatriots aside, the park was an explosion of colour and design, and clearly extremely popular with locals and tourists alike, but with all due respect to all you art aficionados out there, I don't see why. To me, if the "i" in Gaudi was a "y" it would better describe it. Still it was a great day out and well worth the trip.
After a couple of hours of recovery back at the hotel, we set off again for our next visual experience - the Sagrada Familia. While having long ago reached saturation point for churches and other such monumental edifices, this one was like nothing else we have ever seen. Gaudi designed, started in 1883 and due for completion in 2026, words like impressive, imaginative etc hardly do it justice. After passing through what can only be described as the grotesque like exterior, inside was yet another explosion of colour, space and creative design. It is amazing to think that such modern concepts had been imagined, much less adopted in the late 19th century.
Of course, ever such monumental structure is intended to be as close to heaven as engineeringly possible and so comes complete with towers or spires ...for the climbing. Never one to let a chance go by, Jean had prebooked a trip to the top, up by lift and down the obligatory narrow, dark tight winding stone staircase to the bottom. Set for a 5:30pm start, I thought my luck was in when at 4:30 we found that there was a problem with the lift or something and it was not working. Money could be refunded if it was still not running by 5:30. But, at 5:29, it's back in service and there's nothing for it but to press on.
So, with these memories behind us, and photos in the can, we ended the day with a meal of Catalonian fish and a fillet steak for Jean.
Our last day in Barcelona was spent quietly wandering the back streets and piazzas in the old quarter, and just enjoying the beautiful wide avenues where people, not cars were the priority. A truly people part of town and overall throughly enjoyable city...albeit the small part that we were able to experience.
Tomorrow, it's off to Córdoba by fast rail where it is forecast to be 27degrees.
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