Halloween 2019

Spain Vacation -- Day 9 -- Flight home to Utah

Videos from Spain 2019 Vacation

Spain Vacation -- Day 8 -- Drive from Barcelona to Madrid

Drive from Barcelona to Madrid, Playa de la Mora in Altafulla, Tarragona, the Cathedral and dinner in Zaragoza

This day got off to a rough start. We were heading back to Madrid, and I'd had the genius idea of driving down South to Valencia, then turning inland to Madrid. It was supposed to be an hour or so longer, but it felt worth it to see whole new parts of Spain. And the kids desperately wanted to hit the beach, and we hadn't had a chance in Barcelona. So we headed South. And ended up on a GORGEOUS and horrible road that was along the ocean up on a cliff -- SUCH gorgeous views, but within an hour EVERYONE but Greg wanted to puke. We realized pretty quickly we needed to get off that road -- and couldn't for quite awhile -- but eventually hit a toll road that would take us more inland. We used that next, then found this beach. Playa de la Mora in Altafulla, Tarragona. It was perfect -- absolutely gorgeous, nearly deserted, and had a place that sold ice cream and had real bathrooms right there :-) After taking the first many hours of the day to have hit a beach only an hour and a half South of Barcelona, it was still showing it would be way quicker (and cheaper) to head back North towards Zaragoza, and come back the way we'd come originally. The kids had see the beach, and were good now, so we headed back up to Zaragoza. Which turned out to be good, because we got to go see the Cathedral we'd missed the first time and got dinner.

Zaragoza

Spain Vacation -- Day 7 -- Barcelona

Our second day in Barcelona was perfect. We went first thing to see La Sagrada Familia, which is all Ellie had wanted to see for months -- it had been shut down several times in the last couple weeks due to protests, so we were glad we had early morning tickets. Even if it meant waking up everyone early and walking the mile and a half to it :-) It was so cool. The outside was just so strange to me when I first saw it, but up closer it was amazing to see the different facades -- I especially loved the very geometric shapes of the sculptures on the one the Passion facade. And the details on the Nativity side were astounding. But my favorite, by far, was inside. We'd seen some truly amazing cathedrals the last week (Toledo in particular) -- but this was so much more about just the building and architecture and the windows and the light -- it had a totally different feel, and was my favorite of all the inside of cathedrals we'd seen. Going up the tower and the views were incredible, and I loved coming down the 300 stairs with my kids, they loved everything about it -- even if Isaac was a little nervous during the hundreds of feet straight down view in the winding staircase center :-)

After that, we visited the Barcelona Stadium (which was supposed to have hosted "El Clasico", the game between Madrid and Barcelona, while we were there, but had been cancelled due to protests), and then headed to Montjuic. The kids loved taking the scenic tram up to Castell de Montjuïc. This fortress had some of the most amazing views of Barcelona and of the ocean. We then took the bus to over by the piers and explored more of town, then got ice cream and headed back to the apartment.