Silver Wedding Anniversary

We have had a fantastic anniversary celebration in Barcelona today.  we are going to a friend's wedding near Alicante on 25th May so decided a while ago that we would celebrate our 25th anniversary, which is the 23rd, in Barcelona on the way down to the wedding.  So today was the last day in this great city.  Action packed as there was a lot to fit in!

It began with the Picasso Museum.  An interesting and prolific artist with enormous talent. The portraits done when he was young are astounding and, whilst his style changed over the years, I like a lot of his cubism work.  We took the audio tours to help with details and facts; I also found that having seen a lots of his work at an exhibition in London recently, I gained far more than I expected from another viewing.  We had gone to the museum expecting to book tickets for later on but got straight in. Advantage - we missed the lengthy queues that built up later, disadvantage - we had not had time for breakfast so were starving by the time we came out!  Selfie taken at the Picasso Museum - we are reflected in double layers of glass.

After a pause for coffee and croissants we moved on to the Santa Maria del Mar church - wonderful example of Catalan Gothic (ask an engineer the significant differences) and took the guided tour up the tower.  There were superb views from the top over the city plus a serious drop down to the streets below!  More time than we should was spent inside the church taking photographs and, yes, I was at one point flat on the floor pointing the wide angle lens up to capture the whole ceiling,

We paused at an old fish market - now a cultural centre - to look at some ruins that have been uncovered before continuing.

No time to waste, so on to the Chocolate Museum which is really a chocolate factory with the museum alongside.  Once you've paid your small entry fee you are given a bar of chocolate with a bar code on the wrapper.  This code is scanned into the entry gate and, its job done, the chocolate bar can be eaten!  At the end we had a cup of hot chocolate - like you've never had before - almost solid!

We were both feeling very tired but still one more mission to accomplish - a visit to the Museum of National Art and Culture. This is an amazing building at the top of a large hill.  As our legs were very tired by now we were very grateful for the escalators which did a lot of the work getting us to the top!

We were fortunate that the fountains were running. These are wonderful, so cameras were seriously occupied for quite a while (I'll add an extra). Unfortunately I had no tripod with me and no suitable place to rest a camera so could not to any successful longer exposures (I did have filters though!)  The trouble with having a big camera is that it looks as if you know what you're doing and so get asked by lots of people to take their photos!  One family probably regretted asking me when the first thing I did was take the chap's red jacket off him!

We wandered through the museum a bit but were rather 'museumed'-out! We found our way across the vast roundabout to the old Bull Ring with restaurants at the top for an anniversary meal.  We both opted for sea food paella. Then back to our hotel and the packing ready to head south in the morning!

Now I must stop my nodding dog impression and get some sleep!