One More Day In Barcelona, Final Day In España

It was another fine day, sunny and cool in Barcelona. We packed our stuff, checked out of the hotel, and headed for the Olympic Park not too far away from the hotel. The complex is in a large area that included an old fort upon a hill. The main stadium stood at midway up the hill, and there were also other buildings within the complex that were used for various games for the Olympics, I presume. As usual there were tourists all over the place. The open top bus also goes through the complex. There were ample space for parking and Fahrul parked close to the cable car bottom station.


We took the cable car to go up the hill, to the old fort and the garden surrounding it, covered by tall walls at the edge of the hill around the top. All along the walls and at the corners were spaces for guards and lookouts. The guns were mostly trained towards the sea. I guess in the old days this fort was the bastion of the city of Barcelona. From this vantage point we could see the whole of Barcelona, the port area and the sea beyond, the whole city and the surrounding countryside. There was a war or army museum within the building on top of this hill and there were also several old canons, German made Guns and Howitzers, displayed at vantage points around the walls. Why German made I wonder. I am not familiar with the history of the place but I guess the Germans had some role to play in the protection of the city at some point.

Najla apparently was having fun running around and playing. She kept saying she wants to play in the playground. We were not sure if there were any up here and true enough there was none after going around all the corners of the garden. She insisted on playing in the playground all the same while we tried to convince her that there was no children playground anywhere around. Anyway we continued viewing the site and later took the cable car back to the bottom. While in the cable car Najla pointed to a children playground below us but luckily there were no one anywhere around the playground. Even the roads nearby appeared deserted. We convinced her that the playground was closed and she reluctantly relented. Saved some time there!!

From the Olympic Complex we moved on to another part of the city, the Catalonia Plaza and stopped for a while to take more pictures. From here we went on our way back to Madrid as we have to catch a plane back to London the next morning. We took a route through the city of Zarragoza to Madrid, total traveling journey of five hours. As we have plenty of time we decided to stop over in Zarragoza which was about three hours away from barcelona, to perform our obligations to the Almighty and also for dinner.

The city of Zarragoza is not as big as Barcelona and not as busy and the buildings appear modern and comparatively new. The shape and structure of the main building in the city however appear to follow the traditional shapes and designs of old buildings in Spain, with domes and minarets typically adorned with the cross at the top. It does not look like a church and I suspect it is not meant to be one but could possibly be an administrative centre or for some official purpose. The other buildings within the city centre all appear to be modern.

Fahrul parked the car in an open parking lot and we walked around for a while before stopping at a suitable restaurant not too far away from the local mosque/religious centre. It rained for a while that evening while we were having dinner. When the rain stopped we proceeded to perform our obligations to the Almighty at the religious centre. It was then almost 11.00pm and almost time fro us to leave for Madrid and the airport.

We arrived at the airport at about 3.00am. Our flight to London was at 7.30 am and we had some time yet before checking in for our flight. We just rested and caught some sleep in the car, parked at the rental car return plaza, while waiting for time to check in. There was already a long queue when we went into the terminal building to check in at about 5.30am. After checking in we had a simple breakfast of bread and other food stuff we had brought along while on the road, did the necessary freshening up and went into the departure lounge. There was no hassle going through Immigration and security. Our flight was delayed by about half an hour but that was no big deal really. Farewell Madrid and good bye Spain…..

MKI Ramblings Unlimited,
London, England, UK