Today (Oct. 15 ) we drove from Carcassonne to Barcelona. Everyone seemed to think we were taking our lives in our hands to driving the 2.5 there (not counting the 45 minutes it took us going down the wrong streets after we got to town) because there was a little rain. Actually, the drive was just fine, autoroute all the way, not to crowded, and no rain to speak of, except for about 5 minutes as we came into town. ( It turned out that the drive back, 3 days later, was pretty wet and windy).

However, finding our hotel … and our hotel….was/is another story all together. We used Rick Steve's Spain book, which seemed to indicate that the place had some simple charm. Well, it is simple....bed, closet, chair. One of the lights works, which is good. Its on the opposite side of the room from the door, but heck, thats not very far. But you have to be careful when coming in at night when the timed lights in the hall (which is the balcony of a light well forming an interior court) go off before you have reached the room. But its clean (I guess). And the interior balconies are very pretty.

It's right in the Barri Gotica and right near Las Ramblas and an easy walk to all sorts of restaurants, shops, clubs, etc. The amount of people out an about on the main pedestrian shopping streets is just amazing. We had fun going to two or three tapa's places soon after we got here and having tinto negra (red wine) and various this and thats to eat. Bought Dave a pair of new shoes...his old ones literally having holes in the soles. The prices of shoes, clothes, and food here are much less than in France. Not so with the hotels however.... which is why we are in our little one star dump.

We went out for some red wine and tapas, and wandered up to the cathedral. There is an ornate overpass in the adjacent street that is reminiscent of Venice. The angel is just a small bit of the decoration. The other picture doesn't want to cooperate, so too bad.

In the plaza, we saw a man with a rack that held life sized marionettes which were so carefully weighted that he could manipulate them in various ways just by swaying back and forth while he played his tin whistle (they were attached to him by strings to his hips and shoulders. I have a movie of this, of course, but still haven't figured out how to post movies.

After our tapas and red wine run, we napped until 10:00, when we went out to eat. Along with everyone else in Barcelona, it would seem. We found a very nice restaurant just off the Place Reial, but couldn't get in until past 11:00. No problem, we just sat on the square - which is entirely full of restaurants and cafe's, and had some more tapas and, this time, "cava", which is the local sparkling wine. Then off to dinner at "La Crema Canela"....very good, very inexpensive.

After dinner we strolled about (a fair amount of drunken brits, and equal amount of hookers, if you walk on the wrong side of Las Ramblas down near the Columbus circle and the port). But it doesn't feel unsafe, just a bit unsavory. Dave wanted to walk down to see the sail boats (mind you it is now after 1:00 am) but there were still lots of people out and about, so we walked over this very modern pedestrian bridge that spans the marina. However, while we were looking at the boats we heard a signal beeping and it turns out that the bridge is retractable and they pull it back at 1:30 am.....well thats nice! There aren't any signs or warnings or anything. But, it just meant a long walk around and over the next bridge, so it was OK.