Hop On Hop Off Bus

We love the Hop on Hop Off buses. You get a wonderful overview of the place you are going to visit and you can see if there is something you don't want to miss.
We got tickets for our first full day. We know from experience that the jet lag takes its toll.
We bought a one day ticket and that entitles us to ride two different routes. I am expecting it to be rather spectacular. I just hope we have good weather for it. Again we got our tickets through Viator.


OUR DAY!!!
We were late getting going but we were blessed with a beautiful sunny morning. Thanks to guidance from Sandra we made our way to the bus. At first we were on the wrong bus with a different company but it was soon straightened out and we were on our way.
There were ear buds and a running commentary of things as we drove past. There were lots of things to notice.
The traffic is just as crazy as it is elsewhere but they have very little parking and what they do have is very expensive. They are encouraging people to use bikes, electric bikes and motor bikes. There are some rentals. I did not see even one parkade but there are lots of spaces to park motorbikes.

The city has 5 kl of  beautiful beaches with swimming and surfing and kite flying etc.

They have crosswalks for pedestrians but they are not at the corners. They are about 20 meters down the block. There are crossing lights as in other cities but it was strange to not cross at the corners. Often the crossing was diagonal and not at a right angle.

I was surprised to see so many palm trees.

They have outlawed bull fighting and the arena has been turned into a shopping mall and office spaces.

A lot of the apartments have those very small french balconies.

Gaudi's influence is seen everywhere, and when they tell you about a building or other structure they make certain to tell you who the designer and who the architect was as well as when the structure was built.

There are many parks and fountains throughout the city. They are beautiful and well used. Sidewalk cafes are very common.

Generally speaking our first impressions of the city were good ones. The city is clean and beautifully maintained. We saw some graffiti but not a lot and we saw not one bit of paper blowing around and I did not see cigarette buts even though we saw lots of smokers.

We concluded that Barcelona has gotten a bad wrap when it comes to pick pockets. We saw both men and women carrying purses or back packs no differently than they do in other places. There seems to be no need of me wearing my purse under my jacket and hanging on to it for dear life.

We only scratched the surface today and there is so much more that we will see in the coming 5 days.

Tomorrow I have my painting lesson and we have a walking tour with Sandra.... Unfortunately the forecast says rain.