One of the things all the guidebooks tell you not to miss when you visit Barcelona is the various buildings designed by Antoni Gaudí, so on Sunday afternoon, before the (ultimately disappointing) men’s French Open final, we took the subway up to Sagrada Familia and then over to L’Eixample to see Casa Milà and Casa Batlló.

Obviously, Sagrada Familia has been under construction for forever now (they say it will be completely in 30 years, don’t hold your breath), but I was still surprised to see the sheer number of cranes surrounding the church. That, and the fact that several tour buses were parked out front, really takes away from the ambiance, but the architecture is truly unique and still worth a visit.

We didn’t go inside, but based on the facade work, I imagine that the interior is pretty amazing.

Casa Milà, nicknamed La Pedrera or ‘The Quarry’, stands on the corner of Passeig de Gracia and C/Provenca. It’s a huge building composed of wavy walls and highly detailed iron balcony work. It looks like the building is melting, I think.

The next stop on our list was Casa Batlló, otherwise known as the ‘Dragon House’. While it’s impossible to see all of Gaudí’s vision from the street, you can see bits and pieces such as the bone details on the windows and the colorful scale-like mosaic.

On the last day of our trip we took the #24 bus north of town to see Parc Guell. Although it was raining for most of the day, we still walked around the entire grounds and greatly enjoyed the panoramic views of Barcelona. As for the park itself, we were a little disappointed. The mosaic benches were lovely, but the dragon, though colorful, was smaller than I thought it would be.

Another issue was that of restoration again, the first sculpture at the main entrance was completely shrouded and none of the fountains were running, so the overall effect was ultimately lost. I found out later that the dragon was severely damaged by vandals last year, so I guess we’re lucky to see it at all.

Gaudí’s work is seen in many places throughout Barcelona, but there were many other talented architects at work here too, and all you have to do to enjoy it is walk around and pay attention.

Eric’s conference took place in the Palau del Congressos building near Plaça d’Espanya, so I met him up there for lunch and to meander around the Montjuïc area in between sessions. Included in the conference was a daily (and tasty) box lunch: foot-long baguette sandwich, salad with nuts and cheese, fresh fruit, chips, Fanta, water, and a full-sized chocolate bar. Plenty for the both of us to split. :)

Although we never entered the National Museum, the views from the top were absolutely stunning. Thankfully there were outdoor escalators to help folks up the steep incline.

(click on the image for a larger version)

Behind the museum is the site of the 1992 Summer Olympics, featuring a huge torch monument, public sculpture, gardens, and, of course, the Olympic Stadium.

Because of the drought (I imagine), none of the fountains in the city were running. However, on Sunday (the last day of the conference) there was a bike rally and concert in the Plaça de Carles Buïgas, so all the water was turned on. I’m glad we got to see the plaça in its full glory at least once!

On our first day in Barcelona, we walked all over the Barri Gotic, La Ribera and El Born neighborhoods.

We really enjoyed the narrow streets and courtyards sprinkled throughout.

We spent a little time wandering around the Santa Caterina market and after some drinks outdoors at a place on C/Vermell, we spent an hour exploring the Museu de la Xocolata. The museum is dedicated to the history of chocolate in Catalonian culture and features several sculptures from local candy-makers.

Next, we made our way to Parc de la Ciutadella and up to the Arc de Triomf. We missed the one in Paris, but this one was still pretty impressive.

At this point it started pouring, so we worked our way back (using large trees to stay mostly dry) to the Picasso Museum to dry off. Neither Eric or I are huge fans of cubism (Miro and Dali are more our speed), but his earlier works is where the museum really shined. It’s divided into years/periods, so it was very easy to see the progression of Picasso’s style throughout his painting career. The museum is actually spread out between a few gorgeous townhouses, so the building itself is almost as impressive as the collection!

Earlier, I wrote about some of the frustrating aspects of renting an apartment in Barcelona, but this post is about how much we loved having our own little place in the city.

Even though the location of the apartment was on a busy street, once the balcony and bedroom door were closed it was quiet enough to sleep. Plus, we were in a good location for getting to and from Eric’s conference (a 20 minute walk each way), easy access to great markets (two within a ten minute walk), and near lots of good restaurants, grocery stores, and bakeries.

Our view from the balcony to the apartments across the street…

Here’s how we dealt with the apartment negatives:

Problem #1, no wine bottle opener
We had planned on drinking cava most of the time, which is like champagne, so the bottles essentially open themselves, but I wanted some rioja to enjoy with my late lunches. On the way to Eric’s conference location one day I spotted a place that sold wine from a huge barrel for only 1.80E a liter! They just poured it into a bottle, corked it and after 1.35E I was on my way. In other words, the wine in this bottle is in no way related to its label. It was pretty good, btw. :)

Problem #2, no matches to light the igniter-free gas stovetop
Eric came up with a solution to this problem. He took a long piece of cardstock, rolled it up tightly and set it on fire via the pilot light. He then carried the flame from the laundry area into the kitchen while I turned on the gas. All so I could make eggs on two of the mornings. I would not really recommend this method, but it worked for us.

Problem #3, neglectful management
Since we never had the opportunity to make a complaint directly to the manager upon checking out, I happily filled in the booking company with the details of our stay when they emailed us a survey to complete. :)

The experience of renting (and living in) an apartment in Barcelona for a week was both fantastic and frustrating. We booked the place online (of course) and had plenty of contact with the guy in charge of managing the apartment before we arrived. He knew in advance that we didn’t have a cell phone and that we would only call him if our plans had changed or we were running late. We got to the appointed spot a few minutes early but after waiting for almost half an hour, I was worried he was never going to show up!

So I went to the internet cafe next door and called him, he apologized, saying he thought we had a cell phone and was beginning to wonder why he hadn’t heard from us. (sigh) Anyway, after this he was there in a flash and the rest of the check-in process went smoothly.

The apartment itself was fine, relatively clean, and had enough space for us to spread out for the week. The stairwell leading up to the fourth floor (no lift!) was rundown, with many broken floor tiles, but thankfully there was a light at the entrance to the street and our apartment, so we never had to navigate in the pitch dark.

Perhaps it was because we were tired, but we never checked to make sure we had a wine bottle opener while he was checking us in. Once I discovered this a day later, I emailed him to ask about it and he promised to drop one off later that day.

Never. Saw. Him. Again.

We also had many problems with heat in the apartment. For one, the on-demand gas water heat pilot light went out at least five times during our week-long stay, usually right before Eric wanted to take his shower. To relight it involved the slow and tedious process of holding in the button and “very very slowly” (according to the directions) releasing the button to keep the flame lit. Additionally, there were no matches anywhere in the apartment to light the gas stove that didn’t have a built-in igniter.

Finally, we had agreed on a 8am “prompt-check-out-time” (his wording) when we left and two women (we had never met) showed up over 15 minutes late to check us out and give us our deposit back. Thankfully we still made the train we needed to get to the airport on time, but it was certainly not how I wanted to start my last morning in Barcelona.

Despite all of these inconveniences, there was plenty of good, so check back to find out how we got around some of these obstacles!

We only had four days, two of which we spent watching clay-court tennis, so to be fair, our experience in Paris was a brief one.

We liked our hotel, it was a tiny, but clean, room on a quiet street and even though we got turned around almost every time we tried to navigate home, I’m glad we stayed at the Alesia Montparnasse.

The view from our room…

Getting from the Orly airport was frustrating, but I think it was compounded by the fact that we were tired after the 8+ hour flight and we arrived on a Sunday afternoon, so only one money exchange place was open (for the entire airport, so just imagine the line). It wasn’t in our terminal, of course, so we had to take a shuttle to the other terminal only to discover that all the ticket places were closed for the various forms of transportation to downtown Paris, and no one took credit cards, so we had no choice but to change money in order to leave the airport. After waiting for over 20 minutes in line, we just decided to use the ATM machine, damn the foreign fees, and be on our way.

In general, I found Paris’ streets to be terribly difficult to navigate, even with a map, and after four days I still never felt entirely confident getting anywhere. We were also stranded in Saint Germain after dinner one evening because we didn’t realize the bus line we needed stopped running after 9pm on Sundays. After that little incident, I insisted on the subway for the rest of the trip and we had no trouble on that front. We were able to buy ten tickets at a time for a discounted price and split them up among the four of us.

The food was very good, in general, but my favorite dinner was at Le Petite Zinc in Saint Germain. I had the steak tartar laced with cognac. Yum.

Breakfast was always a set price, usually 7 Euro for a croissant, cafe latte, and orange juice. Most places stopped serving breakfast by 10am and didn’t open again until lunchtime. The only real trouble we had was on the last night we wanted to just get some dessert and a bottle of wine (since we ate dinner already at the French Open), but without ordering a full fixed price menu, our options near the hotel were greatly diminished.

Here we are at our favorite breakfast place on our last morning in France… (photo taken just before drinking a pitcher of wine with our lunch!)

Overall, I thought Paris was very expensive, but that could have been due in part to where we were located and the places we chose to eat. Although, I wouldn’t think the 14th Arr. would be a particularly pricey area. The natives weren’t as rude as advertised as long as you started with a pleasant “bonjour!”, and many people just spoke English back to us anyway.

While I’m in no rush to go back, I suppose the Musee d’Orsay and the Lourve will be too big a draw to pass on forever. :)

We weren’t sure about the rules for photography at the French Open so we only brought my little camera on the first day. Once Eric witnessed the massive camera gear hauled around by various spectators (and got over his lens envy), he decided to bring our Rebel XT on the second day.

Turns out they allow just about anything in, including food and drink, hallelujah!

Maria Sharapova and Dinara Safina getting ready to start their match…

As you can see, our seats were almost directly in the center. It was a completely different view because on television, the camera are situated behind the players.

It was cloudy all morning and even though we were hoping for the best, it just wouldn’t be the French Open without a rain delay.

Thankfully, after the (relatively short) hour-long rain delay we had sunny skies for the rest of the match.

This match went down the wire, three hard-fought sets, including two tie-breaks!

See more Roland Garros photos in our Paris Flickr photo set.

On our first night in Paris we took an hour-long cruise along the Seine to various landmarks in Paris. We passed under some beautiful bridges and circled by the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.

We sailed at 9pm, so the sun was setting just at the finish of our trip.

Hi everyone! We have been back in the USA for under 24 hours and Eric is already on another plane back to NC for an interview. He will be checking in on our house and yard and I am praying that at least one of my tomatoes has survived the 100-degree-plus heat that Durham had last week. He’ll be back tomorrow evening and then we’ll head to upstate NY for two weeks for a workshop he’ll be teaching at Hamilton College for the last two weeks of June.

I am (hopefully) on the upswing from a sinus infection (makes flying for eight hours even more fun!), so I will be resting up and posting copious amounts of photos to Flickr from our wonderful stays in both Paris and Barcelona. I will also be posting at least once a day for the next several days while I make sense of all the great experiences we had on this adventure, so stay tuned!

Even though we slept until 11am this morning, we still managed to take advantage of Eric’s one free day before the conference started. We walked all over Old Town down to the Barri Gotic Cathedral (which is currently undergoing restoration work rendering it completely non-picturesque at the moment). We also strolled around the Parc de la Ciutadella up to the Arc de Tromf and had a glass of rioja (for me) and sangria (for Eric) with some tapas in a quiet courtyard before tiring out feet at the nearby Picasso and Chocolate Museums. We have a ton of photos to share as usual, so I’ll try and get some up in the next few days. Buenos noches!