DAY 197 - Barcelona: #1 City in the World for Pickpockets

Oct 2 - "I'm on the Top of the World Lookin' Down on Creation"

The Guinardà Park is one of the Three Hills Park located at the top of Barcelona. We took most of the day walking to the top of the mountain and enjoying the beautiful sights of Barcelona, although it was a bit cloudy.

A fountain trickles down the hillside.

You can really see La Sagrada Familia from up here!

A good capture of the "Bullet".

Having fun with our "bunny ears."

Our host, Ivan, told us about Franco, (Hitler's friend), who went around shooting people who didn't agree with him.  Ivan's grandfather was nearly shot during WWII and most all of his friends were killed. 

Montjuïc is translated as "Jew Mountain" in medieval Catalan.  We saw "Franco's Castle" on top of it.

It served as a prison, often holding political prisoners. The castle was also the site of numerous executions. 

This place up here had been inhabited, but then it was taken over by military personnel in WWII.

Remnants of old tile in the dwellings

I love this OLD tree and its huge roots!

If only trees could talk.!

This guy was making a living by blowing HUGE colorful bubbles!

It was shortly after this photo that Rich set his fanny pack down beside him to take one more photo.  He felt something, but didn't look up for 5 - 10 seconds later.  By then, he noticed his pack (with camera case, cell phone, fruit, batteries, and a couple of other non-important items was GONE!!  We questioned people, looked all around, but to no avail.  Someone had been really sneaky.

Luckily, he didn't have anything really important in it, but was left feeling that he had really been invaded.  We were lucky nothing had happened for nearly 7 months, but in our last week, this had to happen.

The Catalans are great about re-cycling with colored dumpsters all over the city.

 BUT...why does it smell like GREY water all over the city? 

Ivan has a shirt exactly like Rich's...pretty crazy!

Patricia's story of how she escaped Uruguay during the Revolution in the '80's was really interesting.  Her father was one of the heads of the common people which the UN helped him to escape and give him asylum in Sweden.  She had a very interesting story of living in Sweden and how dangerous is was when she tried to go back in 2000 to visit.

We really got to know this wonderful couple!

We're off once more - this time to north western Spain - Santiago del Compostela.