After 20 hours of traveling, we arrived at our 4 star, luxury, upscale, boutique hotel at 10:00am and THEY HAD OUR ROOM READY!!!! We could check in! No, stow your lugguge and come back in 6 hours! We stayed at the Murmuri Hotel on Rambla de Catalunya and it was AWESOME!!! We LOVED this hotel. Great customer service, nice upscale rooms with all the amenities, comfortable beds and pillows, English speaking TV, amazing bathrooms and for a bonus: a balcony! The area was very quiet and relaxing and in a really good section of Barcelona. Close to great shopping, restaurants and Gaudi buildings.
It was decorated in Silver leaf, velvet, silver beads, and purple in the lobby and restaurant.
The lounge was light blue, white and black. Loved it.
We had separate rooms behind this single door.
Our room
The girls room
We were very impressed with this hotel. Especially the Handsome Husband, who has stayed at many 5 star, luxury hotels. We couldn't believe this hotel wasn't 5 star and the cost of the rooms were so low. So we checked in and took a 3 hour nap.
Barcelona's streets are wide and on a grid pattern. Very easy to follow a map throughout. The streets had wide sidewalks on each side of the street and some of the bigger street had a sidewalk down the middle filled with sidewalk cafes. Every building was ornate and had wonderful balconies and architecture. A feast for the eyes! It was very hot, but a cool breeze blew down the streets and was refreshing.
The Casa Mila (La Pedrera) built by Antoni Gaudi was a 2 minute walk from our hotel, so we headed on over. Gaudi was Barcelona's premier architect. He built only in Barcelona and he created in the Modernism style. He designed everything in a building, from the overall structure to the most minute detail. I loved it. It is so different from anything you will ever see and it has it's own beauty. 
This is the entrance to the Casa Mila. Every detail in the style of the structure. This building was built in 1906-1912. Just think how unusual it would have been then...and is now!
This is the courtyard when you go through the doors. Beautiful iron work, curved lines, mosaic painting and lots of light.
He designed alot of the furniture that would go in the apartments. Here, HH and I are sitting in one of his chairs. It was really comfortable.
We then headed to the roof, where these amazing chimneys and ventilation towers adorned the terrace. My girls immediately thought the chimneys looked a lot like "Dementors" from Harry Potter!
Me, Katie and Delaney on the terrace. All wearing orange, not planned but noticed.
We then took the metro and headed over to the Placa Espanya for the Font Magica show. This was a beautiful, impressive street. I saw the Tour de France go down this street one day. Fountains lined the street on both sides and then an impressive collection of fountains were in front of the museum. We grabbed a seat on the pedestrian bridge and waited for the show to begin.
It was a great show with music and lights. It started at 9pm and went til 11:30. You could come and go as you pleased, it was free and it was worth the metro ride to get there. This concluded our first day in Barcelona.
While we were "killing time" at the Placa Espanya, we stumbled upon this shady passageway that was full of "Art". The girls decided that the exhibit was interactive and actively participated in the presentation of the art.
I got a little distracted as I was about to tell you about our morning city tour that started at the Cathedral. As we began our tour, someone tried to pickpocket one of the ladies on our tour. She had an open purse (no closure on the top) and a woman had her hand totally in her purse. She would never had known, had she not turned towards the guide to hear what she had to say. The woman disappeared quickly in the warren of little alleyways near the cathedral. I always take a bag with a zipper on top. Anyway, pictured above is the Barcelona Cathedral.
These old doors looked so medieval, we had to get a picture. The Barri Gothic (old town) was built around the 1300's. I don't remember hearing anything earlier than that. It was very scenic and hot. No breeze blew through these narrow alleyways and sometimes they would smell like urine (they always looked clean though).
After we left the Barri Gothic, we were dropped off at this little shopping and restaurant area in Montjuic. They stranded us there for 3 hours. Totally a tourist trap to make you spend your money there. This is a little event center they built in the 1800's for an exposition. It takes you through all the various architecture of Spain. It was very picturesque, but 3 hours, give me a break.
Pretty door. The Handsome Husband loves to photograph doors. He really got into balconies too on this trip
We had lunch here and then we had about 2 more hours to kill. I'll show you some of the things we did tomorrow to pass the time.
On the second day in Barcelona, we took a city tour. Our first stop was the Cathedral. As we were walking through the doors, we were stopped by security and told that we could not enter because we had bare shoulders. For our convience, we could purchase scarves for one euro. I bought a scarf for each of us and I lugged those babies all through our trip and we only needed them that one time. Oh well, at least Katie had some fun with hers...
Using them for their original purpose. Inside the cloisters at the Barcelona Cathedral.
After 20 hours of traveling, we arrived at our 4 star, luxury, upscale, boutique hotel at 10:00am and THEY HAD OUR ROOM READY!!!! We could check in! No, stow your lugguge and come back in 6 hours! We stayed at the Murmuri Hotel on Rambla de Catalunya and it was AWESOME!!! We LOVED this hotel. Great customer service, nice upscale rooms with all the amenities, comfortable beds and pillows, English speaking TV, amazing bathrooms and for a bonus: a balcony! The area was very quiet and relaxing and in a really good section of Barcelona. Close to great shopping, restaurants and Gaudi buildings.
It was decorated in Silver leaf, velvet, silver beads, and purple in the lobby and restaurant.
Barcelona's streets are wide and on a grid pattern. Very easy to follow a map throughout. The streets had wide sidewalks on each side of the street and some of the bigger street had a sidewalk down the middle filled with sidewalk cafes. Every building was ornate and had wonderful balconies and architecture. A feast for the eyes! It was very hot, but a cool breeze blew down the streets and was refreshing.
This is the entrance to the Casa Mila. Every detail in the style of the structure. This building was built in 1906-1912. Just think how unusual it would have been then...and is now!
This is the courtyard when you go through the doors. Beautiful iron work, curved lines, mosaic painting and lots of light.
He designed alot of the furniture that would go in the apartments. Here, HH and I are sitting in one of his chairs. It was really comfortable.
We then headed to the roof, where these amazing chimneys and ventilation towers adorned the terrace. My girls immediately thought the chimneys looked a lot like "Dementors" from Harry Potter!
We then took the metro and headed over to the Placa Espanya for the Font Magica show. This was a beautiful, impressive street. I saw the Tour de France go down this street one day. Fountains lined the street on both sides and then an impressive collection of fountains were in front of the museum. We grabbed a seat on the pedestrian bridge and waited for the show to begin.
It was a great show with music and lights. It started at 9pm and went til 11:30. You could come and go as you pleased, it was free and it was worth the metro ride to get there. This concluded our first day in Barcelona.
