Big Day in Barcelona (part 2)

Pat says:
After our visit to Sagrada Familia, we walked thru a park across the street & decided to take a Coke/lemonade break and figure out the rest of the day. We decided to get a 24-hour pass for the "hop-on, hop-off" tour bus around Barcelona. It gave us a chance to see other parts of Barcelona while giving our feet a rest, and we could take advantage of our passes the next day to ride another route to pass the time before our train on Thurs, scheduled to depart at 4 pm. Among the sights were a restaurant (Two Patties 😉), playgrounds, their own monument to Columbus (called "Colom" in catalán, as opposed to "Colón" in español), a communications tower from the 1992 Olympics, an open-air cultural exhibit, the former bullring (not a thing anymore in Barça), Corte Inglés department store, and of course, McDonald's.

Laurie chimes in:

We were able to get nice, shaded seats on the upper level, and decompress from the Sagrada Familia experience.

We returned to the hotel to decompress, and asked the hotel desk clerk about Colóm, a restaurant with good reviews. He approved. We knew that there would be a queue, which ended up being an hour. The time passed quickly, as we conversed with two young women from England- one an optometrist, the other a data analyst.

Dinner was another amazing meal- sangria, seafood paella, and garlic shrimp, followed by crema Catalan. We were surprised by a complimentary aperitif- a Bailey's-luke concoction for me, and an herbal liqueur for Pat.Read more