Julie and Tim went to breakfast this morning and then returned to get Alana up. They headed for the airport at 10:30 for a 1:15 flight…and were at the gate by 11:15! As of this writing, they are on a plane from Amsterdam to JFK, so smooth sailing thus far.
Benton, Tim, and Lucy proceeded to have one of those 20,000-step days: took the metro to get close to Park Güell, which meant a lonnnnnng and pretty steep uphill climb…only to find out that tickets needed to be purchased, and there were no tickets available until 4:00 that afternoon. So, we secured those tickets and proceeded to take a “30-minute” walk to the Tibidabo Funicular. That walk was… back down the steep hill, flat for a ways, and then a pretty extended uphill climb. It was more than 30 minutes. And it was hot. But, we made it!
We then took the funicular up to Tibidabo and then went all the way to the top of the Sagrat Cor church to have a look around. Great views!
From there, we took the funicular back down and then walked for a bit before grabbing a cab back to Park Güell—getting to the entrance was more climbing, and then the park itself was a lot of climbing. We spent a couple of hours poking around the park before heading back to the apartment for showers, a snack, and a little bit of relaxation before heading out to dinner a little after 8:00. We all agreed that some good pizza would hit the spot after a long and hot day of walking, and that’s what we found!
Following dinner, we walked over to check out the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc, which had a large crowd, was clearly a tourist-y thing…but also was pretty cool. And, both Benton and Lucy were patient and helpful with Tim’s various camera fiddlings to take some slow exposure and lensball pictures of the show.
We were back at the apartment by 11:30 and convinced everyone would sleep well.
An interesting/memorable experience of the day:
Benton: Getting to Tibidabo on foot only to be told by the ticket agent that there was a free bus that would have gotten us there. And Lucy being a trooper about the whole thing.
Tim: Sitting on the metro and trying to find out when the fountains at Montjuïc were turned on/off each day…and discovering that there was a whole light and music show there that we could easily get to to check out.
