After wandering around through what are apparently thief infested botanical gardens, I made my way to Barcelona's waterfront. The statue in the distance is of Colombus. The weather was bad and the area rather cold, but I can imagine that during the summer months it must be lovely. |  |
 | The aquarium was definitely the high point of my time in Barcelona. The brass pathway beneath me in this picture moved and took you through the many underwater tunnels that ran below the different tanks. I must admit, as much as I criticized the Barcelona zoo (see adventurelog) the Barcelona aquarium is doing a really nice (and creative) job. Inspiring method of presentation. |
Ooh. More cool glass tunnels, these were just great. |  |
 | The maritime museum was also fantastic. I know I go on and on about this in my log but the boats were just brilliant. Especially the ones where you could look inside the brig and hear the prisoners plotting to incite a mutiny in non-castillian Spanish. That actually is an interesting side note; all of the uneducated sailors' and thieves' voices were non-castillian while all of the captains and navigators used castillian. I wonder if this was a sign of education. |
I went wandering through town and I came upon the back end of this old cathedral in the centre of the city. Admission was free, so I thought "what the heck" and entered. Never before have I seen a cathedral of this sort. There were many small and lovely fountains surrounding a pool with geese swimming in it. Beyond this atrium of sorts there was in fact a standard cathedral. I should note that I stopped taking the photos of cathedral interiors a long time ago, they may be beautiful but aside from the Vatican and a few others they are all very much the same. I suppose a reasonable analogy would be taking photographs of art galleries, the art may change and the building may be pleasant, but really the photo is usually not worth the bytes it takes up. |  |
 | Silly, silly, silly. Everyone makes such a fuss over this place (Guadi's Sagrada Familia) and it just isn't worth it. Even in mid November it was way overcrowded and take note of the cranes... it is falling apart and still has not even been completed. Guadi (the artist that made this church famous) died before it was finished and now the building sits half completed while everyone argues over how to finish it. So, it is simultaneously requiring restoration efforts as its construction procedes at a snails pace. As I said, silly, silly, silly. |
Ah yes, those are yellow naped amazons in that cage. The illegal tropical bird trade is alive and well in Spain (along with countless other countries - USA included!). Little crusading note: don't buy parrots (or any other animals for that matter) unless you know they were bred by a licensed breeder - most pet stores don't count. Check documentation. |  |
 | If you think this looks a bit Disney, i.e. too perfect to be real, than you are right on because it is. No, I didn't pay a visit to Euro Disney, but Barcelona has this little tourist trap called Spanish Village which is deceptively marketed as a historic site. Well its all rubbish. Tonnes of vendors and everything is merely a reproduction of an idealized Spanish Village. The place was about as historically accurate as Fantasyland. |
While running around the city I ran into this little festival that was taking place in front of one of the city churches. Lots of dancing and music. Really warm community. |  |