When in Rome...

Greetings from Rome!

For the past few days we have been in Barcelona. We moved out of our apartment in Florence on Sunday and took a train to Pisa. From there we flew to Girona, Spain, and then took a bus to Barcelona. We did not have internet in Barcelona, which explains the lack of posts. Right now we only have internet on our laptops in our hotel’s small lobby, so I won’t be able to post any more pictures until I get home. Sorry! I have some great ones of Barcelona, and all of the pictures I will take in Rome will be great too, of course. :)

During our last few days in Florence, we finished our schoolwork, turned in papers, and did a few sightseeing things we hadn’t done during the month we were there. We visited the Duomo (but did not climb up) and a Medici Palace. We also went to the Pitti Palace (another Medici Palace) and strolled in their famous Boboli Gardens for a while.

Barcelona was absolutely beautiful…let me say it again: beautiful. They don’t speak regular Spanish there; they speak Catalion (sp?) which was difficult for even Cristina to understand. It was a much more modern city than we were used to in Italy. We got a pass for the hop on hop off sightseeing bus which was a great idea. We got to rest and ride around on the top of a bus when we were tired.

Here’s a sampling of what we did in Barcelona:

We took a cable car up to Montjuic (meaning “mountain of the jews” since it was a jewish cemetery), the site of an old castle. We got a great view of the city from way up there. And the cable car was fun. Like flying in the great glass elevator.

We went to the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona’s famous church designed by Gaudi. Gaudi is now my favorite architect. Google him, he was amazing. The church is unfinished, and parts of it were destroyed during a civil war, so it’s even more unfinished.

We went to the Casa Batllo, a house Gaudi designed. There isn’t much to say about this Gaudi stuff without pictures…sorry. Like I said before. Google.

We went to another building done by Gaudi that I can’t remember the name of right now, and there was a little Gaudi exhibit inside. Gaudi was big on decorating the roofs of the houses he designed, and they are very fun to walk around on. It’s like a little playground.

We went to Parc Guell, which is an outdoor park designed by Gaudi.

Our last day in Barcelona was spent at the Barcelona Aquarium, the Picasso Museum, and the beach. The Aquarium was supposedly the best in Europe but it was not that impressive. The Picasso Museum was very interesting. I’m not the biggest Picasso fan but it was a great museum nonetheless. Before our flight we headed down to the beach for a little while and took some pictures and strolled the boardwalk.

We are exhausted.

Tomorrow we will start seeing all the sights in Rome and then we head back to the USA on Tuesday!