Well, I have spent the entire time on this flight from Madrid to Chicago working on organizing my photos from this trip-at least a sampling of them! The best thing I will say about Iberia, is that on this plane, at each seat (in biz class) they have an outlet that fits a regular plug!!
So despite the 8 hours of travel time, my battery didn’t have to get challenged.
Jack and I really enjoyed Barcelona and felt that we would have liked to have had several more days there. That is the one city we really felt warranted 4-6 days, especially if one is to do it leisurely! We took our vehicle (the bus touristic) from near our hotel and headed to Gaudi land. As you may know, Gaudi was an amazing architect who lived at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Centuries. He created buildings, communities and sculptures out of all kinds of material and loved working with ceramics (mosaics) as well as metals. His most famous endeavor was Sagrada Familia, a cathedral neither he nor anyone else since has been able to finish. It is an amazing piece of artwork. We also saw other buildings he designed en route and then visited the park he designed. This park was to have been a planned, gated community 100 years before anyone else had the idea. It was to have been for very wealthy people and apparently it was too far outside of town to be a success. The park was a collaboration with a gentleman for whom he had built another building.
Jack and I walked up to the park and around the 30 acre park and then down to catch the bus again. While our first day was perfect, weather-wise, Monday was a bit hazy and occasionally overcast. We continued our tour of the city, including seeing the Barcelona football stadium which is the 3rd largest in the world and as they are on a winning streak there was great interest in the stadium and team. We also strolled down the “Rambla” a pedestrian mall that goes from Catalonia Square to the sea-filled with shops and buildings that span the centuries. We visited the famous market with everything from bugs (for sale) to fruit, fresh fish, nuts and sweets, et. al. Then we visited two famous chocolate shops and collected goodies for my chocaholic daughter who met as at O’Hare airport in Chicago between our flights. Baleigh seemed pleased with the chocolate she “scored” from Spain.
We had a final dinner in Barcelona and packed for the long voyage home: a 75 minute flight from Barcelona to Madrid (with the attendant 90 minute time at the airport beforehand); scurrying around Madrid’s airport since they were not able to transfer our luggage from one airline to the other…then a 30 minute walk (literally) across Madrid’s international concourse to our gate! Then 8+ hours across the Atlantic to Chicago; a couple of hours there for customs, visit with Baleigh and onto the next flight-home at last!!
While our travels across the globe are wonderful, there is no place like home. We do appreciate our country and our comfortable adobe abode. We hope you have enjoyed this trip with us and look forward to taking you along on the next!
Over and out!
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