September 10: Barcelona - Day 3

For our last full day in Barcelona we woke up early to head down to the Mercat de la Boqueria to browse the marketplace. The market is amazing, the aisles are pretty narrow, but there are hundreds of vendors selling everything from meats to fruits and vegetables and even nuts and sweets. If you're not familiar with the market the first time you visit it will seem like a maze of food stalls and vendors. It's definitely an experience you don't want to miss if you're in Barcelona. 

After leaving the market we went to a chocolate store named Cacao Sampaka for some hot chocolate. The owner of the store is Albert Adrià, renowned chef Ferran Adrià's brother. The chocolate was really good and rich, and the consistency was almost like pudding but just a little bit thinner.

After we finished our hot chocolate we went back to the hotel to get Uncle Phil and Auntie Bev and then we headed to the Picasso Museum. At the museum there was a special exhibit on Diego Velázquez's painting Las Meninas, which included a bunch of other artists' interpretations of the subject including Dalí, Goya and of course Picasso. 

The permanent part of the museum consisted of Picasso's works throughout his lifetime and they covered each of the periods in his life. I hadn't realized that later in his life he had even dabbled in ceramics, some of which were really incredible. Unfortunately they didn't allow us to take pictures in the museum so the pictures I did take are not centered.

I hadn't been feeling real well the last couple of days and it came to a head after the Picasso Museum so my dad and I walked back to the hotel where we rested the whole afternoon. The rest of the group ended up going out for tapas at around 5:30 or so. At about 8 we headed back out to visit Gaudí's building La Pedrera (the stone quarry) because admission was free after 8 for all the museums in the city for some festival or something. The roof of La Pedrera has some pretty cool sculptures on the top and there's a lot of stairs, especially for a rooftop.

After that we were going to try to go to Casa Batlló, but the line was around the block and they hadn't even started letting people in, so since I wasn't feeling that well I decided to head back to the room while everyone else went to the Palau Nacional de Montjuïc (National Museum). Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.