Ola from Barcelona

Today is Monday, June 23rd and we are not sure where the time has gone since we left Dallas on Thursday..although I suspect a lot of the time was pasted in airport terminals!

The weather has been magnificent here, cloudless, sapphire blue skies and warm temperatures.

Yesterday we were up early for our Viator. We took a taxi to the Placa and finally found our bus. There were only 9 touristas, including us. We drove south along the coast of the Mediterranean to Tarragona. This was one of the biggest Roman centers outside of Italy and was established around 213AD. It was a kind of resort place then for the rich Romans and it had all of the most important things, like the Roman amphitheater, Roman baths and thick walls for protection.

Our next stop was at the Roman Viaduct. This was built at the same time and was used to bring water from the rivers above Tarragona to the Roman Baths. It is a very impressive structure and has survived a long time!

Our next stop was at Roc de Sart Gaieta. This was built as a resort by the dictator Franco. At the time, the government was trying to unify all of the established Spanish areas into one culture and so the resort is very beautiful and the architecture is a combination of Spanish tradition.

Our last stop was in Sitges, another beach resort area just south of Barcelona. It is also a very beautiful area with nice beaches and plenty of cafes and restaurants. We didn't see much of this because we joined a very nice woman from Vienna for a very late lunch in a café on the beachfront. We indulged in Cava Sangria and a nice dinner and we watched the people pass and the nudes on the beach. It was very hard, but Jack refrained from snapping pictures of the nudes!

We arrived back at our hotel after 8:00pm and we were exhausted! Too much heat and too much Cava!!

P.S. Cava is the Spanish champagne, grown locally. It cannot be called champagne because the French will not allow it! We can testify as true, that Spanish Cava is very, very good and when added to freshly prepared sangria mix, it is to die for, fresh fruit and all!