We tried to take advantage of our last few hours in Barcelona. We wandered past the Palau de la Musica Catalana to take a few photos of the gorgeous pink building and found ourselves exploring the Mercat de Santa Caterina, the more local marketplace, to pick up some final treats.
Palau de la Musica Catalana
Mercat de Santa Caterina
One of the neighborhoods that we hadn’t spent any time in yet was El Born – a stylish shopping, cafe, restaurant and bar neighborhood that has all of the charm of Barcelona without the kitschy touristy feel. I kept taking photos of these small alleyways and narrow buildings until my sister pointed out that I was really taking photos of people’s houses, their driveways and their colorful laundry air-drying outside their windows….whoops.
After a peek at the Santa Maria del Mar and a lunch of pintxo tapas, we wandered back to Placa Nova and the Catedral to find that the whole square had been transformed. The 2014 Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique had taken over the square to stage the cars about to race from Barcelona to Monte Carlo – quite a backdrop for the start of the rally!
Santa Maria del Mar
After 45 hours in Barcelona exploring amazing architecture, eating delicious seafood and meats and drinking tasty cava, wine, fruit juice and liquid chocolate, it was time to say good bye.
Barcelona is definitely a place that I would want to come back to visit, but most importantly, I need to go back to taste these tempting meringues – my only regret is that I left without trying one.
Adventures On the Road 
I love taking photos of alleyways too!
It gets addicting lightfellow!
Omg this is all looks so wonderful! I went to Barcelona last summer and I didn’t see the Palau de la Musica Catalana! Damn. I’ll have to see it next time for sure!
It was a beautiful building – next time I want to attend a concert there.
Oh wow I didn’t know it was a concert hall. 😡 Even better!
My husband and I visited Barcelona years ago. One of my best memories was when we trying to squeeze in one last tourist attraction (Picasso museum) before we left, and we couldn’t find it. A kind man went above and beyond the call of duty by walking us through the twisty-turney streets most of the way there. And when we did get there it was really interesting. Most of the works were from very early in Picasso’s career before he developed his unique style(s).
That’s one place that we missed. We passed it, but our last tourist attraction to squeeze in was a walk through El Born and one last meal of tapas. Definitely more things to see and a reason to go back to visit with my husband. We found everyone pretty friendly as well, that’s great you had such a good experience there.