Tourist Time in Barcelona!
May 20th 2010
After two weeks on the road, I am back on Sorcerer II as we prepare for the Mediterranean sampling season. We are docked in Port Olympic right in the heart of Barcelona. One aspect of this year's blogs is to share some of the experiences and places we get to visit. We are delayed in Barcelona waiting for a boat part, so we had a few days to explore Barcelona. Last year I spent a week in Barcelona and did the jump on jump off bus tour, which was good. The main thing you see on the bus tour involves the architecture works of Antoni Gaudí, which is great and very impressive to see especially the Sagrada Familia. The one thing I thought the bus tour didn't describe in great detail was Barcelona's long history and interesting culture. Marc Lliros, a collaborator on the lakes samples we had collected in Spain, was born and raised in the Barcelona area and offered to give me a walking tour of the city. And walk we did.......... for about 8 hours.........I think it really is the best way to see a city, it was exhausting but very educational. As we walked around Marc described the history of the city, historical importance of each building and the culture of the Spanish/Catalan people.
One afternoon Jeremy and I took the train out to the base of Montserrat a mountain about 40 miles outside of Barcelona where the Santa Maria de Montserrat is loctated. The monastery is Catalonia's most important religious retreat, there are also miles of hiking trails.
