First time to Spain

To start our trip to Spain, the family and I spent the night in a hotel at Gatwick airport. There are amazingly inexpensive flight deals here, but of course there are a few catches (unless you get lucky). First, you'll need to book a bit in advance. Second, you'll probably get tough times of day (eg early or late). Since we had an early flight, we spent the night so that it was a bit easier to make the flight (there goes some of the savings :) ). All London airports let you pay for parking in advance (online), that seems to save a lot of money too. The car parks are pretty nice too - they read your license plate, welcome you (in text on a screen) and let you in.

We started in Barcelona. The air traffic controllers were on strike in France, so our pilots warned us that we were taking the scenic route. We flew over the Alps and they were beautiful, so it was worth it!

We were nervous about our taxi pickup because of the flight delay, and after just a few minute wait, they were there! My cell phone didn't work at first, but my wife's did, so I did some googling to solve the problem. Strangely enough, the easy fix was to turn off "euinternet", but then it worked!

Time to explore! Barcelona's most popular street is called Las Ramblas. At one end is a plaza and about a mile down, toward the beach, is a Christopher Columbus monument. It's a cool street because there's a pedestrian-only area in the middle. That area is probably wider than both ways of the street combined - so it's very inviting. The outer streets are lined with shops, the inner pedestrian area is lined with pop up stands and even some restaurants. It was quite crowded and we enjoyed some tapas there. 

The area by the Christopher Columbus monument reminded us of Southern California - Palm tree lined streets with the feels and smells of an ocean - very cool. 

We walked to the Picasso museum next. We had bought our tickets online so we were able to skip a long line and walk right in. This was probably the first experience where we felt the family friendly nature of Spain - several of the museum employees went out of their way to talk to the kids and make them laugh. What I personally learned the most at the museum was the journey/improvements that Picasso made over his life - I thought they were noticeable even though it wasn't specifically called out as something to watch. 

As the day wrapped up, we visited the Catedral de Barcelona. Very impressive of course :)

We had heard that siestas still happened, so we were prepared for shops and restaurants to be closed all afternoon. In the heart of the city, we found that most everything was open all afternoon, so the learning continued...