22 - 26 August
On Saturday we caught the train to Barcelona with Joce and Bruce in tow. Spanish trains are great - fast (hit around 300km/h at one stage) , clean, comfortable and they run on time! We'd all been to Barcelona before so had no real agenda to do anything.

We took a look around the Sagrada Familia, a cathedral actually worth visiting, walked along La Rambla, and took the Teleferico (a gonadola) across the harbour. In the evenings we sampled the Paella and quite a bit of Sangria which turned out to be very popular, we had to hold the parents back it was so good.


On Tuesday we caught the same train as the parents to Madrid were we parted at the station, they were going on to a tour of Portugal and Spain. We've been to Madrid before as well, so didn't feel like doing to much. After a comical trip to the post office (we were shunted around 4 desks and numerous people, filled out various forms and papers etc. that were eventually torn up, just to post some posters), we wandered along to the Museo Prado to stand in a queue for 1 hour. After getting closer to the front we realised that it wasn't the queue we were supposed to be in, in fact there wasn't a queue for the museum at all. After some teeth gnashing and petty squabbling we had a look at some old paintings - the 'black' paintings by Goya are rather creepy.

More photos here - Barcelona :: Madrid.

Next stop, the Costa Del Sol.