Back to the Aquarium, it was an average city aquarium, not amongst the best we've seen, but not terrible either :)

shark eggs

Part of the collection:

a good sample of paintings from Salvador Dali

yeah, many religious paintings, felt like too many by the end of the trip

We didn't see all of Barcelona in 3.5 days, but we saw a fair amount:

Day #1

Day #2

Day #3

Day #4

Here are the pictures:

Day #0

weird pigeons

Day #1

la rambla is mostly a tourist trap now, but it had some fun stuff :)

funicular up to Montjuïc

Once we were up by Montjuïc, we went to check out Joan Miro Museum which was part of our BCN pass (sadly a waste of money as museums were free that day due to the holiday). I'll just say that we were not big fans of Joan Miro:

any artist who thinks they can get away with this, and call it 'valuable art' is not one I'll take seriously

don't love this, but at least there is a bit of work

great art indeed

I should also take balloons, fill them with paint, throw them on a canvas, and get rich and famous

this was ok-ish I guess

the mercury fountain was likely the only cool piece for me

On the way to the art museum, we walked by the former olympic stadium complex:

And we eventually got to the Art Museum:

awesome view from up there:

the bullring turned mall

Sagrada Familia, still being built

Pictures of the Cataluna Art Museum are on their own page.

Once done with the Art Museum, which took a while, it's not small, we walked back to the Montjuïc cable car and took it up there:

good views from up there too

After seeing the castle, we went back down to the fountains, but were not able to approach them since they were getting ready for the festivities and fireworks of that night, so we walked to the bullring museum which had good views too:

while the inside looks like a round-ish regular mall

We then took another cab to go to the Aquarium, have dinner next door and find a reasonable spot to view the fireworks.
You can see the Aquarium Pictures here

Day #2

We then went to Picasso Museum:

yeah, he did pottery too, oh boy...

We finished it quickly enough that we had time to stop by a market before catching a train to Figueres (on its own page, mostly to see the Dali Museum:

Day #3

Gaudi was a one of a kind architect, definitely check out the page I made for his buildings. Got a few nice pictures from the roof:

We then walked to the cathdral:

Nice views from the top of the cathedral too:

no one was able to tell me what this was

Next door was Barcelona History Museum, with a nice tour through the roman streets that were found below ground level in the old town:

I made the call to leave the museum a bit early (we finished it the next day) and grab a cab to Barceloneta to check out the beach, and barely, so barely get a ticket to the cable car that picked up from there back to Montjuic, as they closed the ticket sales 30mn before their published closing time:

people working out on the beach

the ride from the beach starts from a high tower

Day #4

We then went back to downtown to finish up the history museum, do the gaudi museum, and the quite interesting Museu Frederic Mares on its own page.

And we finished the (partial) day with the Gaudi Museum and Guel Palace. From there, we had to head out to the airport to fly out to Granada, our next destination.

Dali definitly was an interesting artist, who actually did all kinds of art all the way to jewelry. One thing he said though "I don't need to take drugs, I am drugs" :)

Next door to the museum, was an easy to miss separate entrance that showecased his jewelry, which was super nice:

The place was definitely interesting to visit with little rooms in all directions and easily worth 2-3h. Thankfully when we went, it was not too busy, but at times it can take an hour or more to get in.

After a morning in Madrid, we took the train to Figueres for a half day, mostly to see the Dali Museum but it also had nice Castle Ruins (Castell de Sant Ferran). With the fast AVE train, it was less than 1h ride:

the train station made it clear what the main attraction was :)

Castell de Sant Ferran is better appreciated from the sky and was worth an hour visit:

The town also had a more minor toy museum that we saw quickly while waiting for our next hourly train:

And then it was time to take the train back home to Barcelona:

Next was Casa Mila which also had stupid waits, even in end of September, but as good capitalists, they sell skip the line (expensive) online tickets:

one of the building's arches has a view on the unfinished Sagrada Familia

Gaudi used an interesting engineering principle of suspending structures upside down and using gravity to help see ideal building shapes

Down the street was his Casa Batllo, another expensive visit with more expensive skip the line tickets I was able to get:

Another of his buildings was Guel Palace, which we saw just before leaving Barcelona:

another nice roof

And for good measure, the city also had a Gaudi museum:

poor thing :)

The inside was beautiful and colorful in ways that the other cathedrals we've seen, were not:

We did the tower tour, which had decent views, but it was still work in progress (top is still being built):

the stairs were truly bad ass

The museum attached to the cathedral gave lots of details on the history and the build, as well as Gaudi's life:

Gaudi used nature for many of his designs

Guudi also used a gravity upside down model

Definitely one of a kind, worth the visit.

Granada still has city walls:

Downtown Granada is also worth walking through:

The next morning, we drove by the Monasterio de San Jerónimo for a quick visit and then did a quick visit to La Ronda:

It's a nice city on top of a hill, separated by a bridge, with ruins, a Bull fighting ring and bull raising farm:

We had enough time for the bull fighting ring and museum, and dinner:

The next day, we went to visit the 2 halves of town:

the arab baths are all the way down, where the water is

We then thought we'd do a quick stop at Mondragon Palace, but it was a much bigger museum than planned. We ended up spending multiple hours there:

We then checked a wine "museum" which was also about selling wine:

Another small museum on the way out:

traversing the bridge back to new town

On the way out, we drove by Pileta Cave, a privately owned with caveman engravings. As usual, no pictures allowed, even without flash:

After that, we had a drive to La Línea de la Concepción. We tried to stop by Castillo del Águila on the way, which was a huge mistake. You can't really drive to it and we got stuck in an old town where driving out was "challenging"

didn't look like much

reasonable scenery

driving out, OMG!!!

finally making it to the Mediterranean coast