Barcelona, Paris, and London

I am finally posting about the last week of our trip! I apologize that I am so late getting it up!
Barcelona is mainly known for its structures designed by the architect Gaudi. The only building we saw by him was his most famous, La Sagrada Familia, which is absolutely beautiful! Gaudi loved nature, and it is evident in the way the light comes into the building and by the pillars that are in the likeness of tree trunks inside the building. There is also a museum attached to the church with all the different models of the church and information about its structure, as well as information about Gaudi's life.

The rest of the time in Barcelona was spent on La Rambla and at the beach. La Rambla is a street full of people selling things they have handcrafted. There is a lot of jewelry and many other unique gifts. It was a little chilly while we were there, but at that point I think would would have sat on the beach if it was snowing!It was so good to relax and take it easy for a couple days. The only annoying part was all the women who try to sell massages to you; they even have charts to show you exactly what kind of massage they give!

Paris was everything we thought it would be: beautiful, good food, and rude people. Our hostel was literally atthe bottom of the Sacre Cour, so each night we climbed to the top and watched the lights come on all over the city. The first day we went on the usual walking tour and saw most of the main attractions. Then we went to the Arc de Triumph, which offers a beautiful view of the city. You can walk 360 degrees around it, so you can see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre and Notre Dame. That night we went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit up at night. It was not disappointing! It sparkles for five minutes on the hour during night time, and it was worth waiting the extra 40 minutes until it started.

Our last day we visited Notre Dame and the Louvre. Notre Dame has huge, intricate stained glass windows, and there is also a lot of information in the church explaining its history. Unfortunately it was all in French and we did not take the audio guide, but it was still good to walk around and see everything. The Louvre is huge. You could spend a week there and still not see everything if you took the time to read and really look at everything. We only visited one wing, partly because at this point we were exhausted, but one wing takes a couple hours to go through. So, we saw the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, and much, much more art. I love art museums, so itwas nice to take some time to enjoy walking around and enjoying everything, but we really could have used the whole day there.

I missed my plane out of Paris! So sadly I did not make it to London in time for the royal wedding, but I did stream it live from my laptop. It was beautiful and I read all about it in the newspaper the next day. :)