In general, we’re not very good at combining business trips with pleasure but at half term I was due to be in a conference in Madrid for the latter part of the week and Christine was about to start a new collaboration based in Barcelona so we decided to take the children over to Spain for a few days. Things didn’t get off to a great start with a three-hour delay on our Easyjet flight to Barcelona. To be fair, they did let us know of the delay before we left home and thankfully we’d already made arrangements for late arrival at our apartment.
On Sunday we took the metro to the Sagrada Familia, only to discover that it was sold out for the day. We therefore slowly made our way to Park Güell where we had booked in advance for a late afternoon entrance. Christine went off to the University on Monday whilst the children and I headed to the beach. Unfortunately you could barely see the beach for the mist, let alone the cable car across the harbour that we were intending to take. Luckily, as we waited to board the cable car the mist started to clear and by the time we arrived at Montjuïc the sun was out in force.
We spent some time in the Fort which became quite atmospheric when the mist rolled in again off the sea. Our walk down Plaza d’Espanya was cut short when Duncan failed to clear the large muddy puddle at the bottom of a very steep slide!
Christine was working again on Tuesday. Sadly the mist had turned to drizzle and I headed to the Museu Blau with the children (located dangerously close to the OpenStack summit that was kicking off that day!). For a very modern natural history museum, it seem to specialise in glass cases with large numbers of exhibits in them which wasn’t particularly child friendly. The visit was saved by the temporary National Geographic Spinosaurus exhibition.
In the afternoon, we headed back to the Sagrada Familia having booked our tickets in advance this time. The cathedral has gained a very impressive ceiling since I last entered the building about 10 years ago. Although the rain had stopped by this point, unfortunately the damp conditions meant that we weren’t permitted to ascend the towers.
Having handed the children over to Christine on a metro platform, I took the fast train to Madrid, arriving just in time for the speaker dinner. The rest of the family flew back to the UK the following morning.