Just a Short Post our Last Night in Barcelona

Barcelona is amazing on La Diada de Sant Jordi, the annual festival of books and roses — and love and culture.

On busy streets today, people are six deep in front of sidewalk stalls and author signings, and even in the quieter community where I'm staying, there are sidewalk vendors selling roses and books.

Barcelona is a City of Literature under UNESCO's Creative Cities Network. Such a joy to see this celebration of reading and books!

(I'm travelling light, but taking notes of books to order at home... I can't manage Catalan beyond menus and signs, but my Spanish is fine... Oh, and the rose-decked building is one of Gaudi's designs, and yellow and red are the colours of the Catalan flag.)

I realize, with sadness, the irony of joining this celebration when I live in a province where library funding has been monumentally slashed...

But books and culture matter!

One of Gaudi's Building Decorated for the Celebration

Just an Amazing Number of Book Sellers

Never one to Miss an Opportunity.
Who knew he could even read?

We then took the Funicular up Montjuic  and then the Cable car to the top looking for Anne's Amusement Park. No luck. Must be another mountain.

We walked around but didn't go into the fort. It was where during the civil war both sides imprisoned, tortured and shot political prisoners. Didn;t seem in the spirit of our visit.

But we did have our picture taken.