One Last Day in Barcelona

The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya...one of the grandest buildings I remember seeing in Barcelona.

The next morning we woke up early. Sydney had already left, but the five of us girls grabbed breakfast, finished packing up our stuff as quickly as we could, checked our luggage into the hostel luggage room, checked out of the hostel, and started our final day of sightseeing in Barcelona. Our first stop was the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (another site that we had vouchers to get in free for). The soccer stadium for Barcelona's team was just across the square from the metro exit. With Sydney gone to see his friends in Madrid and Lisbon, there wasn't anypne else in our group who was really interested in seeing the stadium. So we just went straight up the street to the museum.

The city of Barcelona, as seen from the steps in front of the
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. 

The museum was pretty interesting. There were several sections, but we just went to see the old history, which consisted of pieces of architecture—the remnants of columns, paintings from old churches, statues, and other bits and pieces of old history. Most of the stuff in this section of the museum was just from churches that had been excavated or were still standing but starting to deteriorate. It was amazing, the kinds of details that had been preserved in the paintings and bits of architecture on display throughout the museum.

In the open amphitheater section of the museum (probably where tour groups come to have a guide explain certain things to them), there was a huge pipe organ in the balcony at one end of the theatre. I took the elevator up to the balcony to get a better view of it, mostly because I have a huge fascination with pianos and organs, and some of the pipe organs in churches and buildings throughout Europe are astounding in their detail, size, and design. I would have loved if there was a way to check out the inner workings of the organ—not just the pipes that face outward, but what it looks like from the player's perch behind the pipes.

One of the most complete church paintings on
 display in the history section of the museum.

After everyone was done checking out the gift shop, and I was through admiring the pipe organ, we went to go see the art section in the top floor of the museum. They had a few pieces of art that we were all particularly keen to see, including a Picasso piece (although we'd only seen 4,000 of them just two days earlier) and a Salvador Dali. All of the work in the collection was great—I've always loved art museums, and Barcelona's museum had some of the best of the best.

After we finished visiting the museum, we headed back to Park Guell, so that we could visit it during the day. This time, we took the bus from the metro stop to the top of the hill—it was so much easier than that walk!! Although it was seriously crowded. The park was much more crowded during the lunch hour than it had been, but all the street vendors were out, so we were able to buy souvenirs for cheaper prices than we would have found at stores. I got some keychains (to add to my growing collection of keychains from all over Europe), and we wandered the park for probably an hour more before we headed back to the hostel.

We still didn't have to leave for the airport for a few more hours, so we tried to find an Egyptian museum that was close by. We never did manage to find it, but we stopped at a few clothes stores on the same street as our hostel, then just hung out in the luggage room at the hostel for about a half an hour before it was finally time to leave for the airport. So we left the hostel, bags and suitcases in tow, and made our way through the metro system to the airport. It was time to visit Portugal!

The formation of stones opposite the iconic tiled benches of Park Guell.