Barcelona: Bigger than it looks on my Kindle map!

As promised, Monday was a crazy busy day. The night before we had stopped to pick up some munchies for breakfast (granola bars, oranges, muffins), so we didn't stop for breakfast. Our goal for the day was as follows: Palace Guell, Park Guell, La Sagrada Familia, more gothic, more Las Ramblas.

I recently came across MobiSights guides for my Kindle. For $0.99 you can purchase a guide to the city that gives you a map, top attractions, suggested itineraries, etc.  So, in anticipation of my travels, I purchased Barcelona, Florence, Lyon, and Montpellier. This trip was the first time I was using it for practical purposes. And, while it was helpful, there were also some things that could be improved. But, for $0.99 I am certainly not complaining. Just make sure you have a map that is to scale as well!

Sunday night we browsed through the guide to make a plan for Monday and map out a route. We thought we could walk it all - we were wrong! So, we ended up buying a T-10 card for the metro (a good deal at under 10 Euros and you can share the card) to get us to Park Guell and La Sagrada Familia, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The weather was incredible! Bright sun and temps around 60F (16C for you Europeans reading this). With our hotel being on the water, we had quite a walk to get anywhere (about 45 minutes into the center of the city), but that was just fine with me.  We walked the harbor and then headed for what we thought was Park Guell - a misread on the map - we were actually headed for the Guell Palace. Luckily, we stopped at a little crepe stand and the woman there gave us directions to the Park. She insisted we couldn't walk there and that we would need to take the Metro and she gave us the names of the stops to look for.

Near the crepe stand when we figured out where we really were!

Since we were so close to the Guell Palace, we checked that out first - it was designed by Gaudi - since the Works of Antoni Gaudi are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We then decided to grab lunch at Artisa before making the trek to Park Guell.

Now that we had our caffeine fix and food in our tummies, we were ready to head to Park Guell. The metro ride was easy and I have to say, not to dis you Paris, because you know I love you, but Barcelona is so much cleaner - both the streets and the metros. It is probably the cleanest big city I have been to...