4-28 Tarragona – Barcelona

Today we drove from Requena to Tarrgona where we visited the Roman amphitheater beautifully situated next to the ocean and walked along the beach. The water was cold but not too cold. Interestingly, the sand here have specks of gold that shimmer in the sun.

After our visit to Tarrogona, we drove to Barcelona. We visited Colonia Guell – a church/crypt designed by Antonio Gaudi for a workers’ colony. The church was not open as it was closed for restoration but we still got pretty good views from outside the fence. In addition, the architecture of the little town is very particular.

Next, we tried to visit Park Guell. However, it took us nearly 1.5 hrs to drive the 20 km from Colonia Guell to Park Guell because of heavy traffic. It turns out that tonight is a big semi-final soccer game between Barcelona and Milan Inter. While crawling along in traffic, we saw a huge commotion going in the opposite direction. It was the motorcade of the Barcelona team – preceded and followed by police cars, protecting a big team bus and followed by a long tail of many motorcycles driven by Barcelona fans dressed in team jerseys and waving team flags. When we finally got to Park Guell, it was fairly late and there was no parking to be had. We ended up giving up and heading off for dinner instead, in the Gothic quarter. After dinner we learned that Inter had won due to the unenthused people in Barcelona jerseys and a passing motorcycle shouting cheers of Inter while passing by.