A leisurely start to the next day with bacon and eggs for breakfast and a lot of lying round reading and sorting things out. At about 11 o’clock we roused ourselves, repacked our leave-behind bag with our boat and wedding attire and set out for the Lockering depot.
After a rather rocky start (due to miscommunication we were in the wrong depot) we managed to deposit the bag and head off to go sightseeing. It’s a neat system. You enter your special pin and the front door opens, you enter it again inside and a picture of a locker appears with a number. Tap the picture and the numbered locker opens. You deposit your bag, close the locker and depart.
This was the day that Barcelona celebrates the Festival of Sant Jordi. It is an immensely popular festival that combines culture and romanticism, celebrating both World Book Day and Valentine’s Day. On this day, it is customary for couples to exchange gifts: traditionally the men receive a book and the women receive a rose. Book and flower stalls are set up along the streets and all over the city are people carrying a red rose.
Many of the houses are decorated with roses and Gaudí’s Casa Mila is one of the finest, so that is where we headed first. Then off to window shop down Passeig de Gracia , a wide tree lined avenue with a large number of buildings renown for their originality, beauty and history and a paradise for luxury shoppers, as they house many of the well known high end brands.
Placa de Catalunyai is a large square in the centre of Barcelona generally regarded as the city centre and known for its monuments, fountains and pigeons. It is where many of the city’s most important streets and avenues meet and where Passieg de Gracia ends and La Rambla begins.
La Rambla is considered one of the best-known streets in central Barcelona. A tree-lined pedestrian street, it connects the Plaça de Catalunya with the Christopher Columbus Monument at Port Vell. It is a tourist hotspot, always full of people strolling among its dozens of kiosks, flower stalls, artists, living statues, terraces, restaurants, and shops.
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About halfway along was our destination, Mercado de Boquera, a large public food market featuring every type of food you could wish for.
There we had a late lunch of seafood and fresh fruit
and purchased provisions for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as wine and chocolates, before catching a taxi home, laden with purchases and rather footsore. We had walked about six kilometres.
