Barcelona; Saturday, 15 March, 2014

I woke to a clear blue sky and a blinding sun pouring through the windows in my 14th floor hotel room. I had a quick breakfast and headed out to the Sagrada Familia as I thought it was likely to get busy early. I was proved right, but my idea of early was slightly out and in the end I had to queue for nearly an hour to get to the ticket office, only to find that you couldn’t go up the towers as all the tickets for the day had already been sold, so I was only able to look around the inside.

However inside it was pretty amazing. When I last visited 10 years earlier the inside had still been a proper building site, but today the inside has been all but completed and it makes a stunning space.

I spent quite a long time taking in the stunning church before heading back into town to pick up the other open-top sightseeing bus route from the one I’d taken the previous day.

I did a full circuit before staying on round to the stop for the Blue Tram up to Mount Tibidabo.

I caught the tram and then the funicular up to the Temple de Sagrat Cor church at the top of the mountain and then took the lift inside the church to its viewing platform, officially the highest point in the city. From here the views over Barcelona and out over the Mediterranean were spectacular, despite the heat haze.

Having stopped for a very late lunch at Mount Tibidabo I came back down and caught the Metro back into town for a long wander, before picking up the last blue route sightseeing bus of the day to take in the views of the north of the city at sunset.

Again, starving by 9pm I hunted out another pleasant tapas restaurant before heading back to the hotel and a good night’s sleep