4-30-2022 - Onward to Barcelona

 

We loved today’s train ride from Seville to Barcelona. Six glorious hours of downtime!  We napped; we played cards; we looked out the window. As one student put it, there were “random castles everywhere.” After a quick bus transfer to our downtown hotel (during which Susana explained the controversies surrounding the Catalan independence movement), we split up into small groups for lunch and then successfully navigated the metro to pick up our rented bikes. We broke into two groups with local guides for a cycling tour of Parc de la Ciutadella, the Olympic Village for the 1992 Barcelona games (remember the Dream Team?), and the waterfront. One of our favorite buildings in the area was Frank Gehry’s Golden Fish. The cycling was fun but tricky at times because the area was quite busy. After our ride we had a nice dinner and then stopped on the way back to the hotel to see the beautifully lit Casa Batllo Gaudi, which provided a great preview for our activities tomorrow, which include the Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia and Park Guell. We are so pleased with the positivity of this group and look forward to the adventures still ahead of us.