Upon exiting our lobby, we noticed an unusual number of people draped in Spanish flags walking the boulevard and some TV station vans setting up camera towers. This gave us a clue something might be happening here.
Our tour of La Pedrera was at 10:00 am so we continued on and enjoyed the tour of this UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Site.
La Pedrera was built as a family residence and apartment building for a wealthy industrialist, completed in 1912. It has a rough outer appearance that resembles a stone quarry with an undulating facade with shapes taken from nature. Inside, there is a top to bottom courtyard which provides natural light and ventilation to the residence and apartments.
The really interesting feature is the undulating rooftop courtyard with many strange forms masking chimneys, stairwells and skylights. Today there are safety fences and guardrails that somewhat detract from the beauty of the design.
Here, an arch frames The Sagrada Famillia which was under construction at the time this was built.
Another interesting attic area...
One of the apartments in the building was available for viewing and it was furnished in period style.
Looking down from the building we noticed the crowds starting to build on the street and figured this was going to be the location of a pro-Spain rally.
When we left the building, we decided to walk back to our apartment via a parallel street.
Once we got to our apartment, the street was jammed with people. Our intention was to return to the old city but we thought we had better just chill out and see what developed. I must say, it was a peaceful event with families and people of all ages wearing or wearing their flags.
Our neighbours across the street were having a balcony party complete with a bar and food.
We had a good vantage point of some of the several block long assembly from our terrace although the helicopters were a bit annoying.
About mid afternoon, the crowd started to very peacefully disperse. We decided to head out and take some side streets and make our way to the Arc de Trumph which we missed seeing the other day because of the Catalonian demonstration. As we are walking down the sidewalk we are passing an elderly lady with a cane slowly walking toward us. We sort of swing wide to give her lots of room when all of a sudden a motor scooter comes up the sidewalk toward us and heads for the gap between us the the elderly lady. His mirror just touches my shirt then we hear him hit the lady behind us who now is lying face down on the sidewalk with blood coming from her face.
I try to chase the scooter who cuts down an alley and by the time I get to the corner, he is gone. Chris tries to comfort the elderly lady as others also try to help. About 15 seconds later I see a police car coming down the street and flag them down.
There was only one person who had gathered that spoke some english so I was able to explain a bit of what happened to the police who did not speak any english. Just as this occurred, there was a double decker tour bus right beside us and I believe an asian lady may have recorded the license number, she give the officer a piece of paper with something scribbled on it but none of us could communicate with each other. There was nothing more that we could do so we continued on our mission to the Arc.
Well, what did we find for our last day in Barcelona but a wine festival!!! About 60 wineries lining the promenade.
We figured we needed some wine after all that had gone on today and bought some tickets for "samples". I figured the 12 pack would give us about the equivalent of one full glass of wine each based on the Niagara-on-the-Lake wine sample sizes. Big mistake. Apparently a sample in Spain is what we call a full glass back home. Luckily we could use multiple tickets to get some of the premium wines so we were able to use them up.
We walked back to the apartment and got our things organized for going home tomorrow then went to the restaurant downstairs for supper.
The next morning, our ride service arrived right on time and we had an uneventful trip to the airport. It was a good thing we were a bit early as the line up to check our bags took an hour to clear, then security, then customs. The flight pushed off 5 minutes early and we had an pretty smooth 9 hour ride home.
We touched down 25 minutes early but were held up getting to the gate because it was occupied. We docked right on time. Jay picked us up at Pearson and chauffeured us back to St. Catharines for the end of another travel adventure.
We loved both Spain and Portugal and I know there is much more to see there. We got to experience a good variety of things from exploring historic cities, wandering through small villages, touring many churches and castles and just relaxing on the beautiful beaches. The weather was perfect except for one day when we had some rain. Daytime temperatures were always mid 20's to low 30's, blue sky and very few clouds. We had pretty good luck with our selection of apartments. The food in restaurants usually pretty good with a few surprises. The wine was definitely good value! Driving outside of the old cities and towns was very easy, some of the best roads I have ever travelled. Old city driving is another thing altogether. There was no problem getting by with only a few words of spanish, a lot of people in the service industry speak english or are very helpful in trying to understand you. We will have to plan another trip there!
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