Carnaval en España (Carnivale in Spain)

I had the pleasure of going to Spain for a second time to visit with my Love’s parents. They made sure our stay was comfortable and they were very hospitable. We drank wine, ate, talked (well, my love translated) and laughed. They showed me new areas we didn’t visit the last time and a local tradition. I could have stayed there longer, which they kindly opened up their home to me to stay any time.  

We arrived Friday evening. It was raining, so they stoked the fireplace where we warmed up with a few glasses of wine before dinner. They have fig, lemon and pomegranate trees, which make wonderful fresh ingredients for foods or just to eat straight from the tree. Here are a few pictures of Saturday morning around their veranda and looking out onto the fields.

Here is a night picture of their veranda.

 

On Saturday morning, we all headed to a place called Girona to explore. It has gone through many sieges with the first inhabitants being Iberians and current residents, Catalans. These pictures are of the market in Girona and a Gothic church.

 

 

We walked through the streets and came upon Arabian baths, so we paid a few euros to see them.

 

From there, we walked around a park and then headed up to the church.

Here is the church from the outside and the view from the front of the church.

We left Girona and went to another town called Banyoles, where we ate lunch. These are a few pictures of the lake.

After lunch, we went to another place called Besalu, and on the way, we stopped at a 900 year old church.

The bridge in Besalu is gorgeous but I couldn’t find what year it was built. I took many pictures of the bridge and looking down from it, so here are a few. 

On Sunday, my Love and I went to Barcelona while his parent’s attended a function they had already planned. We took the train and spent the day exploring parts of the city we didn’t get to explore the last time. Before going to Barcelona, I thought New York and Chicago were huge cities. Barcelona is gigantic.

The first place we headed to was Sagrada Familia. This church was designed by Gaudi and the size of it is overwhelming. These pictures don’t really show the magnitude of this church. Although there are many beautiful sculptures on this cathedral, I think Gaudi got a bit gaudy while releasing his creativity. You’ll see a bunch of cranes in the picture because they are still building the cathedral.

We then headed toward the seaport. Here are a few pictures I took along the way. They had the Barcelona Marathon, so I took a few pictures of the runners.

Some pictures of the seaport area and the statue of Christopher Columbus with a backdrop of Montjuïc Castle.

We finally reached Montjuïc Castle. Not only is the castle enormous, the view is spectacular.

Afterwards, we took a cable car down and walked back to the train. These are pictures of a park we passed, the art museum, a water fountain and the arena.

The weekend was beautiful--we had great weather and company. Hope you had a nice weekend too.