Gaudi Barca

I was amazed when we got out of plane at like 7PM and the sun was still bright in Barcelona, I had expected to get lost in the dark while trying to find our hotel but no... And all the shops were still open! But since we were walking along Passeig de Gracia (with suitcases might I add) there were really none we could walk in to... I'm talking about all the Guccis and Rolexes and Diors etc every luxury brand you can think of is represented with fabulous window displays and fancy security guards opening doors for fancy customers. Fabulous first impression of the city :) And then boom Casa Mila! it was just there! With a queue outside the door obvs. Wasn't expecting this on our first hour in the country :D (yep totally walked past Casa Batllo without even noticing all these bling bling shop windows caught my attention you see ;) ).

Later on that day we went for tapas (not a fan of shrimps) and discovered we're only 10 mins away from Sagrada Familia, so went for a little nighttime walk. Surprised it wasn't lit up in any way though.

Our hotel room

Tapas!!!

yucky shrimps and awesome patatas bravas

Late night walk 

So the first day was Gaudi day. Starting with the fabulous Sagrada Familia that is even more spectacular that I could've imagined.

Look how cool this van is!

Tree inspired pillars

Possibly the best stained glass I've seen

Sun makes the insides even more special

Views from the tower

Staircase down, yeap our legs were shaking afterwards.

Unfortunately I made the booboo of having about a 4h gap between the scheduled Sagrada and Parc Güell :( That was partly due to the fact that midday sagrada and towers were pretty much sold out so we had an earlier start than we would've liked. So we wandered back to the passeig de garcia to see if we could spot some stores we could actually go in to :D Instead found a lovely tiny park behind the tourist information centre. (warning for Emma, I would rather sit in that a park close by for an hour or so instead of shopping...)

Oranges

Casa Mila, unfortunately did not go in, regretted later 

Casa Batllo

We found the weirdest toilet in a shopping centre where the doors were seethrough - until you lock it then they become nontransparent. Stood there for a good while before I could be certain that indeed no one can peek in :D Did I tell you these were unisex... and my friend found out the hard way :D Yeap there was a guy in a cubicle that for some reason hadn't locked the door, I only saw his upper body but she saw the whole shabang :D Welcome to Barcelona!!!! :)

Then we trekked to Parc Güell.

The road from Sagrada to Parc Güell

Gingerbread houses inspired from Hansel and Gretel 

It was designed to be an elite neighbourhood for the rich socialites but no one wanted to live that far away from town (house in town showed more prestige) and the rules about building a house there an maintaining the garden around it were too strict. So the only people living in it were Gaudi and Güell themselves. 

Ttyl ;)

Jazzz...