On our last day in Barcelona, we packed up and checked out at 12. Leaving our luggage at the hotel, we took our final trip to Crusto. Ensaïmada for breakfast and some fine home-made pizza for lunch, sliced and wrapped.

Gaudí roundup

First stop of the day, La Pedrera gift shop, to grab some Gaudí tile reproductions, a poster and tea towel (of course). Then on to La Sagrada Família, to work on our photography skills a little more and eat lunch in the pleasant surroundings of the cathedral and park (far enough away from the construction site whirr). Snap, snap, snap, we tried artistic compositions of the nativity façade, reflections in the lake and reflections in sunglasses included. The sun hot on our necks one last time, we’d escaped the sun burn monster.

One last tapas

Heading back, we spent an age in Vinçon, a department store filled with ingenious furniture and gadgets. Then one last stop at Cerveceria Catalana for Barcelona’s best tapas, before grabbing our bags, repacking them, chilling on the hotel roof by the jacuzzis, then casually heading down to the metro station.

Freshly purchased tickets in hand and out of breath after a mad dash, we sat on the train, waiting to go to the airport. “Is this train going to the airport?”, “no?”, quick! We jumped off before the doors closed, suitcases and all still intact.

The next train was the right one, and after a hike across the airport from the station to the EasyJet check in, we were shortly on our flight home to Gatwick and a not so sunny Brighton.