Barcelona Scenes, 1

We think this is our fifth visit to Barcelona, although two of the visits were very short. The first two were a week or more, and our current visit will go two weeks. Barcelona is a fascinating place, if art and architecture are your interests. Add food and drink, perfect spring weather, and one of Europe's better campgrounds, on the sea, and two weeks may not be enough. Besides, we have transitioned into abide mode, apart from travel mode, and are content to stay put for a while. (South America, in travel mode, was exhausting.) Anyhow, the first two days here we just lazed and read in the campground. The third day, below, we took the (free) shuttle into the city and just walked around mostly, visiting old friends, noticing changes. Then we took another day off. ¡Que bueno es no hacer nada y descansar después!

There are now tapas chain restaurants that serve cafeteria-style;
pick up a tray and scoot along, requesting whatever appeals,
filling your tiny plate for E12.95; no more pushing and shoving
as at the neighborhood joints; on La Rambla, catering to the
cruise crowd, no doubt

The Liceau always does a Wagner

A city of interesting street lamps, here in the
Bari Gotic

Ride to the sound of the cannons, I always say; except here it
was really loud fireworks and a rowdy celebration of the
International Day of the Roma; we fit right in

Excuse me, but hasn't The Church been crowd
funding for a very long time now?

Wine tasting machine in the food floor of El
Corte Ingles, Barcelona's Galeries Lafayette;
we've seen similar machines in Queenstown,
but they charge rather more than the 40 cents
here

E600 jambons

Old wine, new wine drinking apparatus

Must look into this

Spain's favorite contemporary author (and my favorite
contemporary Spanish author); HarperCollins now says the
English translation of The Labyrinth of Spirits (conclusion
of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series) will be out in
2018

As always, we're fascinated by the architecture,
Modernista and otherwise

The eye-ball building

We had a nice menu del dia lunch at Cafe del Academica in
the Bari Gotic, but forgot to take pix; here is the afternoon
snack at a little hole-in-the-wall churro place; too late did
I remember a vow made in Madrid to never again order
separate servings...

New sculpture outside the Palace of Catalan
Music; pigeons/seagulls have already marked it