Barcelona

 You've heard the term Bird's Eye View?  This guy arrived on our window ledge to welcome us to the city...at least that what it seemed he was saying..........that or open the window, it's wet out here!  We were in the older historic downtown area of the city, making it a wonderful location to get out and about.  If you click to enlarge the picture, you can get a feel for how old many of the buildings are.

You can also see how dark and gloomy it was on our arrival, though the next day was beautiful, and the 2nd day even nicer.  Look how the city spreads out, how full, how heavily populated it is.  Off in the distance (though we could walk it) is the famous Sagrada Familia.  Do click to enlarge and see the spires and the construction cranes.  We stayed at The Renaissance, formerly known as The Diplomatic Hotel.  The rooms were a bit pricey and small; but the location was awesome and we truly enjoyed our stay there.
Barcelona, my B for May (status post April A-Z)

There will be many posts about Barcelona with specific focuses, this is a bullet point list of things observed during our too short stay of 3 nights and 2 days.

• Stay longer, there is much to see
• People in Barcelona eat dinner quite late, many restaurants aren't even opened til 8 pm
• The city is packed with history
• Traffic is HORRIBLE, leave the driving to someone else.  Parking is in short supply, lots of folks walk, ride bikes and scoots; as well as use public transportation
• The Olympics were there in 1992, a good place to tour
• There are many Cathedrals to visit, as well as Churches, and Basilica's.  
• Art is Everywhere in many forms
• BE WARE OF THE PICK POCKETS.  Barcelona is considered, even by the locals, to be worst city int he world for pick pockets.  NEVER leave your belongings un-attended.  Men should not put wallets in the back pockets, and women should always put their purses across their body...not just hanging from their shoulders, AND the purse should be in front of you.  NEVER wear a backpack, you can't see them in action.
• The airport is HUGE, give yourself plenty of time to find your way
• Check the price of high speed trains if you want to travel elsewhere and compare to flying.  It may be a better option
• It's a busy port city
• Barcelona has been voted best beach city, multiple times.
• World Book Day, April 23rd, started in Barcelona (St. George's Day) 
• Catalonia flags far and away out number flags of Spain.  Catalonians want independence from Spain, speak their own language which is closer to French and Portuguese then Spanish.  The people in Barcelona refer to themselves as Catalonians, not Spaniards.   
• Rock n Roll is far more popular in Barcelona then The Flamenco.
• The city was formed from a military grid...a planned city.
• There are 5 streets with the name La Rambla

**REMINDER, please leave the url to your actual blog post, NOT your google+ page, NOT your blogger profile/dashboard page. Use the name and url option, or leave a hyperlink. **After the close of April's A-Z, I plan to continue to write a post a day in the month of May using again the A-B-C's as my guide. My focus for the month of May will be Spain. I've been planning and almost have every letter thought out.