Barcelona, Day 2

Chloe had been yammering eloquently holding forth about a delicious Catalan pastry she had encountered on her penultimate vacation conference which had been in Barcelona, so we all went off in search of them

It turns out they are made with lard, which explains some of their deliciousness.  I was not as enamored with them as Chloe, but they were pretty damn good.

At this point, we split up and Mom and I went to La Pedrera which was a block away from the cafe.  The wrought iron gates are wonderful, and this museum was a turning point for me in my appreciation of Gaudi architecture.  I had never really been that interested in Gaudi -- the structures that he built looked ostentatiously random and almost sloppy to me.  When mom and I arrived on the roof, however, I began to see the beauty in the sloping lines and delicate arches

 but it wasn't until we went into the attic that I could see just how perfectly engineered and fabricated all of those ostensibly superfluous bulges and curves were under their glittering skins

I feel a little embarrassed that the underlying structure was what really won me over, but there it is.  Further down, they had opened up and staged an apartment, which was lovely.

Next stop, Mom and I took the metro to las Ramblas, and I managed to flub the entry through the turnstiles and opted to buy another ticket instead of hopping the turnstiles. We walked from las Ramblas through the Gothic quarter to the Picasso museum, where we met up with Chloe and the kids (who were returning from the dreaded aquarium).  I love the Gothic quarter, with its dark streets and elegant emaciated trees.  I think I could spend a lot of time just wandering around there.  

The Picasso museum was great, but a little mobbed.  The kids were by this point completely exhausted, so we stopped into a cafe for refueling.  Nest stop was a really terrible lunch at a Tapas place near the water.  My phone had died, so no Tripadvisor consultation was possible (The app seems to kill batteries at an alarming rate).  Although the decor was really nice, the constant dinging of the microwave was not, and the food was expensive and (much) worse than even French autoroute food.    I got a quick ride in with some expats in the Barcelona hills, which was pretty cool

And then we inadvertently wandered into a FRENCH restaurant for dinner... ARGH