Spanish Vacation - Driving the Camino Days 1-4

Day 1-4:

Tuckie and I went on an extended vacation in Spain, and visited cities in the north of Spain. All of our stops were either on the Camino Frances or the Camino Norte, except for our first stop, Barcelona.

5/11-Thursday-we arrived in Barcelona and checked in to Hotel Praktik Essens @4:30. We settled in, got dinner at a cafe around corner, and went to bed @9:00 pm. The cafe is called the Oassis, it is on the Passeig do Gracia, and is a place where one can get a breakfast of eggs and bacon early in the morning. That is a rare combination in Spain.

5/12–Friday-The Praktik Essens a nicely remodeled boutique Hotel, is an old place on the Passeig de Gracias. This street is a shopping and pedestrian friendly street, like the Ramlbas, but a lot cleaner. Our small room was clean and had a modern window which looked out onto the street. We met our hotel neighbors in that place, who we learned were Phil and MJ Abrams. Miraculously, they were good friends with Greg and Jennifer Oster, people we knew from scouts and the Boise Police Department. After breakfast we walked the Rambla to the breach area, took a gondola ride over the entire port area, and took a taxie back to our neighborhood and walked to Catarina market, saw the Cathedral. Tuckie shopped at Muji, and was back at our hotel before a big rain later in the day.

5/13-Saturday-8:00 met Pablo our guide and 5 other people in our group and we headed up to Montserrat, toured the grounds took funicular up to top walked around for very short stay. Montserrat is a Benedictine retreat, started in 880 AD. Went to old town walked around had lunch at very nice place by the cathedral, then went to Sagrada Familia and toured inside. Took everyone back their hotels (they were all going off on cruises from Barcelona the next day). We ate at La National (not very good) and had rain off and on all day.

5/14-Sunday-we had a good breakfast downstairs and walked to Avis, which was very close to our hotel, not requiring a taxi ride, to secure a rental car for when we were ready to leave Barcelona. We toured mansion that Gaudi remodeled up the street from our hotel. Walked around, and saw the Catalans do a build a human tower on the Passeig de Gracia.