[Plaça de Catalunya]

There's a fair bit of traffic through the night, but its otherwise quiet. We get up reasonably early and grab coffee from the shared area in the hostel. It takes an hour of waiting for people to do stuff to enable us to swap rooms, which is a shame; the hostel staff are polite but busy. Our room transpires to be in a building a couple of hundred yards away, on the same street. It's an apartment block with mostly private flats; we seem to go through someone else's hall to get to our room. It's on the second floor, and thankfully the lift works (though one of the ones where the doors have to be shut for it to work, and people sometimes abandon it on the top floor), and it's pretty nice, though it's above a sex shop, which is a bit disconcerting.

Our room is about 300m from the Plaça de Catalunya, which is at the top end of La Rambla, the main street in Barcelona. La Rambla is famous for its streetlife, and has a lively atmosphere. There is a wide pedestrian area that runs along the centre, and is full of market stalls, human statues, cafes, and groups of people meandering and chatting. The markets have themes which progress along the length of the street; pets, flowers, artists, jewellery. There are hundreds of people milling around in the warm sunlight, and it's a lovely place to be. We stop at a huge marketplace alongside the road, which is packed with vibrant colours and pungent smells of fresh produce, and we pick up some pastries.

[Monument a Colom]

At the other end of La Rambla is the intricate Monument a Colom (Monument to Columbus) and Port Olímpic, a re-developed area of the harbour, with a boardwalk around museums and restaurants. It's one of those rare city-centre places with an interesting and pleasing 360-degree view. We decide to catch a cable car to the hill Sants-Montjuïc, to see the 1992 Olympic site. The cable-car stop doesn't seem very far away, but we walk towards it for a further half-hour before reaching the base. This takes us past the beach, and some interesting artwork. The queue for the cable car seems to be reasonably short, but we hadn't counted on this being a queue merely for the lift; we wait a further hour to get onto the ten-minute ride. The attendants send the car over half-empty, as it picks up more passengers mid-way. Efficiency doesn't seem to be on the agenda. The views are great, and it's an alternative way to see the city, but with hindsight I don't think I'd have bothered.

The car drops us at the top of the hill, where we walk to the Fundació Miró art museum via a café. Iain gets tasty looking paella whilst the vegetarian sadly has to settle for a cheese sandwich. The museum is okay, but the best exhibit is visible from outside: the mercury fountain.

We pass the Olympic pool and stadium, and head down through the gardens to the Palau Nacional. We've walked some distance today, and my foot is starting to complain, so I am pleased to see escalators running down the hill! There are impressive fountains outside the palace, but sadly they're switched off.

My Dad recommended going to the Poble Espanyol, a themed traditional Spanish village area, so we walk further up the hill to it for dinner. There's an entrance fee, which we weren't expecting, but we duly pay and head in. It's a lot like the (free) Mercado in Orlando, Florida - a themed shopping and eating area. I am not impressed to pay to see shops, much less over-priced ones that are mainly closed! It's too late for shops and too early for dinner, but after walking round, seeing the sculpture garden, and checking all the open restaurants, we settle for the one with the most likely looking vegetarian paella, which I fancy.

[Poble Espanyol]

It's a reasonable meal, if a little over-priced, but its worth it to me to get the paella. It's getting dark as we leave, and we've had more than enough walking. We look for a bus, but the stops don't have times on and none appear. We resign ourselves to walking half a mile to the nearest metro stop.

[Fountain]

[Fountain]

[Fountain]

I'm so glad we did; as we approach the fountains we saw earlier, we hear music and see coloured lights in the distance. There are crowds of people, and La Font Màgica are on - dancing in time to classical music, and a light display. It's fantastic; better than the ones I've seen at Disney! It's all the more special and memorable for being unexpected - I haven't got to this page in the Rough Guide yet.

We catch a metro back, and get to our room around 9pm, tired, achy and ready for sleep.