This set completes our tour of La Sagrada Familia and starts our walk around Barcelona. See https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-801395-1.html for the previous post and https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-801137-1.html for the first post of this series.

After our tour of La Sagrada Familia, we wandered around a bit, had lunch in a restaurant recommended by the Viking host at the hotel and then found our way to La Rambla and walked the length of it on a warm day (around 85-90F). La Rambla is 1.2 km (0.75 mile) long. The Spanish poet Federico García Lorca once said that La Rambla was "the only street in the world which I wish would never end." The tree-lined central promenade of La Rambla is crowded during the day and until late in the night. Its origins as a watercourse are reflected in the paving design, which appears to ripple like water. Along the promenade's length are kiosks that sell newspapers and souvenirs, other kiosks selling flowers, street traders, performers, and pavement cafes and bars.

We walked through La Boqueria (the market) on La Rambla; an amazing place. We walked all of the way to the harbor and had planned to eat at the restaurant the Viking host had reserved for us. We had several blocks left to the restaurant and would have finished dinner after dark. We were “whipped,” and took a cab back to the hotel. We asked the person at the front desk for a dinner recommendation near the hotel, as we had an early wake-up the next day. We walked about two blocks to the recommended restaurant and nothing looked good, so we walked back to the hotel and then to the same place where we had dinner the previous evening, but about 45 minutes later (they were open later, as it was Friday night). We ate outside this time and had another excellent meal. We walked around 4 or 5 miles total. A busy first full day of many!