17th June

This morning we posted home another box and then visited CosmoCaixa, Barcelona’s Science Museum.  It has an enormous variety of content and an innovative layout where you enter on the 5^th floor, at the same level as the canopy of a tree from the Amazon, and make your way down to the roots to begin exploring all the exhibitions. We found the Amazon Forest, geological and recycling displays the most interesting.  This city has by far the most thorough recycling system we have seen with 5 separate colour-coded collections (biowaste, packaging, paper, glass and other waste). It seems there are bins for every colour on every street.  At the beach yesterday there was an enormous solar panel installation which reminded us of all the wind powered generators we saw in the south of France on our way here.  It’s pleasing to see these alternative power sources in use. Lots of the displays at the museum were interactive and we were amused by the wonder in the eyes of some very young visitors.  When we both dozed off to sleep in the Planetarium we agreed it was time for coffee!  Eric was going to visit Barcelona’s Camp Nou next, home of the World Champion Barca Soccer Club. The stadium seats almost 100,000, making it the largest in Europe and according to the literature your visit includes the museum, trophy room and replays of the clubs greatest victories.  Meantime, I was going to have some unaccompanied shopping time.   But in the end Eric decided to give it a miss – perhaps he was worried we would have to send another box home!

In the evening we headed back into the city centre for a tapas dinner and flamenco show.  There were so many people out enjoying the balmy evening in the square we chose to have dinner. There were wandering minstrels playing Spanish guitar and later a girls choir to entertain the crowds.   The Flamenco show was high energy and high passion.  Just a small venue that seated only about 50, by the end of the show there were 7 people on the stage.   The speed of the guitarist’s fingers was amazing and the only other instrument was a beat box drum.  The 3 women and a young girl took it in turns to sing or dance and were always clapping to a complicated beat.  We were so impressed by the precision and passion expressed.  What a great way to spend our last evening in Barcelona.