Honeymoon - Spain, Day 2

Day 2 in Spain started off with our breakfast buffet. It was great to not have to worry about paying for a beverage or food for that meal. Since we slept in we really only paid for dinner since we ate breakfast late and could make a small sandwich out of the small french rolls, cheese, and salami offered in the buffet. Here are some pictures.

After breakfast we headed to the post office to mail our parents some post cards. Notice how nice this post office is. It was just as lovely inside.

I had an agenda for the rest of our day. First stop - the harbor and Port of Barcelona. I wanted to walk along the water, see the funky artwork, making our way to the statue of Christopher Columbus at the base of Las Rambles (one of the most lively streets in Barcelona). Here are some pictures.
<What happened next was nothing short of a disaster. Our next stop was the Parc de la Ciutadella - but we got horribly lost on the way there. We saw a huge portion of the city we never meant to see, including some universities, businesses, and neighborhoods, and all I could keep thinking was "this park is supposed to be HUGE, the second largest in the city to be exact, and it even is big enough to have a zoo on its grounds as well as Parliment. How are we so lost?". Eventually though, we found the park and were able to get some good shots before we lost our sunlight.

The park was definitely worth finding. There were many fun buildings and gardens (but the flowers were a little weak because it was late fall/early winter). The most impressive part of the park is the Cascada (fountain), built by Fontsere and Gaudi, topped with gold horses. BREATHTAKING. People were on boats on the lake and we took some time to rest and do some "kissing in the park." It was too cold to be barefoot.
At the entrance of the park is Barcelona's Arc de Triomf (built for the 1888 world fair). It is unlike any other I've seen in that it is brick. We enjoyed the old men playing bocci ball and watched them for awhile. I also loved the street lamps.
At this point, we had lost our daylight. Our next stop was everything Gaudi in the Eixample district of Barcelona. We went to the Sagrada Familia to see it all light up at night - but it was as dark as coal. All my photos came out bad. We vowed to come back the next day and went on to find some other Gaudi architecture. Next stop was La Pedrera (aka Casa Mila, completed 1912), an apartment complex that is very distinctly different than every other building in its neighborhood, time period, you name it. We opted not to go into the actual structure (due to high entrance fees), but enjoyed peaking inside the lobby and going inside its museum bookshop.
Our next Gaudi structure I really loved seeing at night. The way the building lights up is just amazing. The Batllo Apartment Building has so many colors outside and inside.

After seeing Gaudi's works, we walked down Passeig de Gracia toward Las Rambles for a late dinner. Passeig de Gracia is a fantastic shopping street with great architecture. No shopping for us though, we were starving, we weren't into shopping on this vacation, and we aren't loaded for the type of high end shopping there. We decided to go spend our money on dinner - one of the best dinners of my life. My mango-goat cheese salad was so amazing as was Cody's pizza. YUMMY! We also enjoyed the beautiful buildings of Barcelona, its fountains, and anything else dancing in its illumination while walking to dinner.