Barcelona With Anny

On September 25th, Anny and I flew to Barcelona for a few days. It was my first time outside of Italy, and my second European country! What a great city to choose. Barcelona is full of art, food, shopping, Gaudi, trees, colors, and the beach! *If you’ve never heard of Gaudi, he is one of the most creative and amazing architects in the world. His mark has been left all over Barcelona.

As soon as we landed, we found our place and headed out to see the sights. We started at Gaudi’s Casa Batlló (beautiful, but too expensive to enter…) then headed across the street to Casa Milà.




He designed the most interesting rooftop space on top of Casa Milà, which was an apartment building. As you can see- not one straight line on the whole building.

The weekend we were in Barcelona they were celebrating “La Merce” and there were stages, live music, fireworks, and people everywhere! It was super exciting. Here are some shots from all around town including the famous street, La Rambla.





That night, Anny and I met up with Amanda and Mitch McGuffey for dinner. The McGuffeys had come to visit me a few weeks before in Firenze, and I was so lucky I got to meet up with them one more time before they headed home. I met Amanda 3 years ago in Atlanta when I joined her bible study. I LOVED seeing them!

The next morning, we headed towards the seaside to go to the beach! It was a little cloudy, so tanning lasted only about one hour. The seaside is beautiful, especially the “Port Olimpic” area.



We got really lucky and came across a few volleyball tournaments. Yay!

We played in the Olympic Park area for a bit before heading to Park Güell- another Gaudi masterpiece.











Anny and I were staying at a host apartment in the center of town and met another girl staying there named Kitty. Kitty is from Seattle, but has been traveling the world for the past four months. So on Sunday night, we had dinner with our new friend Kitty!


Monday morning, Anny and I went straight to the biggest sight in Barcelona- Sagrada Familia. This amazing cathedral has been under construction for about 100 years. It was Gaudi’s most important masterpiece- artistically and spiritually. He poured his whole life into this project. It has two finished entrances- the Passion entrance and the Nativity entrance. Out of the planned 18 towers, 8 have been built. The architecture was inspired directly from nature, and you can see it in the shell-shaped staircase and forest-looking columns inside the cathedral. Anny and I got to go up in one of the towers!














We met Kitty for lunch on the seaside (much prettier day!) and the girls ate seafood paella. We sat by the beach for a while and hung out until we had to go back to catch our plane. Kitty decided to come to Firenze a few days later and hang out with us!