Barcelona Day 4

Tibidabo is a mountain overlooking Barcelona.  Getting to Tibidabo is good fun and includes a metro ride, train trip, funicular and bus.  Ideally once at the top, you can take in spectacular views of the city, but today was misty.  Emmy was keen to try out the binoculars but you can see the "view" behind her!

The misty top of Tibidabo

On the way down we stopped at a little park....

Park and houses near Tibidabo

We didn't end up staying all that long at Tibidabo, so headed back into the city in search of Montjuic Park and this is what we found.....

Cactus garden at Parc Montjuic

Then it was back into the city for a bit of lunch.  Can you believe it but we went to an Italian cafe.  Barcelona is not cheap and eating out here is generally more expensive than in England. But not today. We managed to sneak in to Cafe Rossini just before their lunchtime special finished at 4:00pm. It included starter, main, dessert and a drink for €8.50, which compared to some of the prices we've seen and paid is excellent value.

Everything about Rossini's was good.  The service (the waiters are very impressive!), the wine, the food and the atmosphere.  Again the location was perfect, with the kids able to explore the courtyard between courses.

Plaça Reial and Rossini's

We all ate way to much so walked half of the way back to the apartment and I even took the stairs not the escalator in the metro J

Barcelona Day 3

Okay - remember I said yesterday was all about walking.  Forget that - TODAY was all about walking, much of which was in search of the elusive churros cafe!

Our day started off with a stroll to the magnificent, stupendous and utterly amazing Sagrada Familia,  the phenomenal masterpiece of architect Antoni Gaudi.  Construction of the cathedral started in 1882 and reflects Gaudi's passion for Gothic architecture and curvy Art Nouveau forms.  Gaudi never saw his project to fruition and at the time of his death in 1926 less than a quarter was finished.

Since then, ongoing construction of the cathedral has been intermittent and despite passing its midpoint in 2010 some of the project's greatest structural challenges remain.  Organisers are hopeful that the final stages of the project will be completed by 2026 - in time to mark the centennial of Gaudi's death.

I don't think my photos can possibly do this building justice, but they give a bit of an idea.


Our tour of the cathedral included a 50m trip up into one of the towers.  There was a sign saying not recommended for people that suffer from vertigo (that's me) but luckily there were no perspex floors and the narrow staircase was surrounded by thick stone walls with only the occasional window.  Ha!  I was as cool as a cucumber, perhaps I'm not afraid of heights after all J

Top left - view peeking out one of the tower windows.

Across the road from the Sagrada is a park and in that park was a man blowing giant bubbles and who can resist a giant bubble or two?

Bottom right - the bubble had just popped, it looks like some kind of time travel wormhole thingy.

And after Sagrada Familia it was off on a fruitless, or perhaps it should be churros-less search, those little bits of fried dough and Spanish hot chocolate just couldn't be found.  I'm pretty sure we were in the right place but just at the wrong time and instead of little shops and cafes lining all the streets, it was just a bunch of graffitied shutter doors. Boo Hiss!

By the time we conceded defeat (boo) it was lunchtime (yay) and we had fabbo pizza.  Not very Spanish but we all gave it the thumbs up.

After munching out it was off to Guell Parc, another masterpiece of Antoni Gaudi and built between 1900 and 1914.  It rates as one of the top attractions in Barcelona but I don't recall reading that it was on top of a hill!  And check out what I mean by hill!  That will have worked off a bit of pizza!

Thanks to the unique style of Gaudi this park is like no other and the crazy curves and angles were fascinating.  The kids had space to run and run they did!

Love Gaudi's work here.

and here

Okey dokey - how does he do it?  We went behind to look for sticks etc but nothing could be found to explain how this green smiley man could hold that pose non-stop for the 5 or so minutes that we pestered him for! The kids tried it and managed a wobbly few seconds.  He well and truly earns his euros!

Barcelona Day 2

Today was all about walking.  We wandered around the city, through the alleyways of the Gothic Quarter, down to the quay and the Colombus monument and along the shopping boulevards of Las Ramblas.

Bottom left - cakes made out of towels!

There were highlights galore, but the most memorable one for me, funnily enough, revolves around food.  In fact I'm feeling a bit like Edmund from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe with his craving for turkish delight, only mine is for churros and chocolate, mmm mmmm.

Underneath that pile of cream is Steve's coffee

We sampled this at a tiny but very busy cafe tucked away in a skinny little lane in the Gothic Quarter.  Just about everyone seemed to be having churros and chocolate and not wanting to miss out on this apparent Barcelona favourite we followed suit.  YUMMO.  The chocolate was thick, dark and lightly spiced.  The churros were light and fluffy.  The two together were heaven.  As I said I've been having a few churros longings since, only trouble is finding cafes that sell them, oh we've searched and searched today, but no luck, which has only fuelled the craving!  And it's not just me, the kiddies and Steve are keen beans too.  Tomorrow is the day, will keep you posted!

Of course our churros were for morning tea which was way before midday, so obviously we were a bit peckish around lunchtime.  Only trouble is we sort of got lost (ask Steve!) and didn't end up eating until about 2:30pm.  Lunch today was decidedly better than dinner last night but perhaps the best bit of all was the location.  Nearly all of the streets in the main city area of Barcelona are laid out in a grid, with large courtyards sprinkled here and there. Within these courtyards are cafes, tapas bars, patisseries, restaurants, small super markets and ice creameries.  But the best feature (for us at least) are the kiddy playgrounds.  Both our lunch today and dinner last night were at outside tables overlooking the playground area and while the kids ran amok we ignored them and focussed on more important things like coffee and sangria while marvelling at the ingenuity of the Spanish when it comes to keeping kids out of parents hair!

The view from our table, note kids conveniently placed at their own table a few metres away J  

Re-fuelled and re-energised we hit the pavement again and were lucky enough to bump into a street parade.......


And then we stumbled across a beautiful market, full of fresh, vibrant produce, some still wiggling......

And then it was back to the apartment, knackered and ready for bed and lovely dreams of more churros and chocolate J

Barcelona - Day 1

But before we got to Barcelona, before we even left Billericay there was a major bit of excitement.

"Hey kids look - there's a great big picture of Dad."

Kids with blank looks staring straight at exhibit A below - "Where?"

Exhibit A

How they fail to see the resemblance between these silver-haired twins is beyond me.

And then, after the crowds dispersed and the autographing was over it was on to a train bound for Southend Airport.  Now Southend is a nice airport - brand new, no queues, super nice staff (even if the  security ones were as keen as mustard and gave Daniel a pat down after his zipper made a beep).  And then it was up, up and away with Easy Jet, complete with scallywag air stewards and £1 instant scratchies for sale.

After one hour 40 minutes on the plane, 26 minutes on the train, 4 minutes on the metro we arrived at our (very strange) Barcelona apartment.  Very strange because of the layout, think rabbit warren, think skinny corridors, think lots of pokey little rooms.  Itching to explore we chucked the bags on the floor and headed out the door.  The streets are rabbit-warreny just like the apartment and we wandered up and down and across and back, squizzing at this and that, heading towards a nearby supermarket.  Always interesting to check out new supermarkets and the stuff they have on sale, seems strawberries are the pick of the moment and we bought and demolished half a kilo of whoppers!

Unfortunately our first Spanish dinner was not the stupendous dining event we'd hoped for, so instead of pictures of food we have pictures of drinks - hot chocolate for Miss M .....

Miss M and her hot chocolate

.......sangria for me and a double malt beer for Steve, along with a picture of a florist and one of the less rabbit-warreny streets.

Sangria, florist, pedestrian mall and double malt beer, all within two hours of landing :)

Barcelona here we come....

Two days until we fly to Barcelona.  The kids are excited, Steve's excited, I'm excited - bring on Friday!

Hedingham Castle

Steve works on Sundays and rather than fluff around inside all day with the squids we (actually it was just me) decided it was castle viewing time - it has been a while since our last castle fix in Cardiff.  Jeremy did his usual "I don't like going to castles" whine, which got ignored until it became so irritating he got told off.

So off we set on the 36 mile journey which included at least 90 million round-abouts, well that's how it felt anyway.  Daniel got quieter and quieter in the back and then announced he felt sick.  I took one look at his face and pulled over pronto.  No vomits in the car thank you very much.  Luckily we didn't have a vomit and after a few minutes out of the car and round-about free he was right as rain.  I knew he was not faking it because his little face looked all white and really freckly as opposed to the usual all brown and slightly freckly J

We arrived at the castle grounds and headed up the hill to the keep, only to be distracted by a brilliant bird of prey show taking place on the lawn near the entrance.  On display were about 6 Harris hawks, they were flying around loose and landing on whomever looked remotely like a good perch. And anyone donning a special glove was at the top of the list.

As you can see, the kiddies all got a turn.  I didn't need one because at one stage I had a Harris hawk perched on my head.  I would have taken a self portrait of me and Mr Birdy, but the angle (shooting right up my nose) was just a little unflattering.

But it wasn't just Harris hawks on display, there were barn owls, an eagle owl, a snow owl and a peregrine falcon.  Jeremy (who doesn't like castles and didn't want to come) was in raptures and decided he'd like a pet bird when we get home (he can put it next to his rock collection!).

And then more luck - inside the keep was a man giving a talk on archery and Medieval life in general.  He also had loads of arrows on display - ones with long skinny points for piercing chain mail, ones with small cages designed to carry flaming rags, ones with big U shaped heads for felling horses (didn't like that one) and ones with big, round heads for practicing. Daniel and Jeremy were fascinated and asked question after question.

On the top floor of the keep were costumes for dress ups, Daniel and Emily had a go, but Jeremy preferred to gaze out the window hoping to see more birds of prey.  And then on the way out we went via the snowdrop walk. Next up will be the bluebell walk.  Looking forward to that one, plus the daffodils will be out soon.  Spring is just around the corner

All in all Castle  Hedigham was a good day out (hey Jem?!)

Wow

What a week!  Starting off with Jeremy being awarded Star of the Week and receiving this.......

Well done Jem Jem

And then Miss Emily (after lots of practice with Daddy) nailing her spelling test...

Go Emmy!

And then getting a call from Mr Wade, the Head Teacher of Quilters Junior School about Daniel. Here's what he had to say and Daniel's reaction as he heard it for the first time...

Go Daniel! Go Price Poppets! Whee heee!

Although in amongst all that good stuff Steve hasn't been so lucky, his knee is stingy and continues to give him gyp.  

And me - phewee - this Friday was every bit as good as last Friday was bad. Aaagh - what a fickle world school is. Oh yeah- and I've just learnt how to upload a LARGE video onto a blog. Tiddlers are easy, it's the whoppers like the one above that are a little more difficult! Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Models with attitude

Daniel and Jeremy have suddenly become fashion conscious.  I blame Reggie.  He is a hip, happening little dude who raps and wears his cap backwards.  I think he's also responsible for Daniel and Jeremy's new found interest in skinny jeans.

There we were, out shopping for tracksuit pants (can't have the poppets running around in the snow in shorts - although, if I must be honest, that's what they've been doing for the last several weeks) and Daniel shoots straight past said tracksuit pants to admire a bright red pair of skinny jeans.  After an extensive try-on session Jeremy ended up with the skinny reds (that are loose by the way - man that kid is skinny - he'd need extra extra skinny before they came anywhere near his actual leg) and Daniel got some orange-ish not quite as skinny skinnies with rolled up bottoms (apparently the very latest).

Anyway - here they are......two skinny minnies

Oozing attitude

with poses down pat

in their loose skinny jeans