Day 18. We head for home

Special cakes for La Mercé

Christine and I headed back to La Rambla for breakfast. I had hoped that La Boqueria was open but being a public holiday it was closed. Instead we settled for morning coffee and pastry at Escribà.

The pastries and cakes are beautifully presented and the chef is quite a celebrity, making cakes in all kinds of artistic styles for personalities and special events.

After breakfast we headed off to see the Picasso Museum. On the way we walked through Plaça St Jaume in the Barri Gotic. This had been the location for the display of Castell building the previous aftenoon but were were lucky now to see another treat that is part of La Mercé, the parade of the giants!

The plaça was quite crowded, what with the giants and the spectators, but I managed to get a couple of photos.


The Picasso Museum was very interesting. There was a short queue to get in but then because of the holiday admission was free! It was particularly good to see so many of his early works all together. You can really get the feel for his development of technique and then the way in which his style was influenced over time by other artists and particular artistic movements. His later paintings and drawings somehow seem to show him "unlearning" all of that to arrive at the simplest expression of the artistic idea.

Then it was back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and head off to the airport. While we were waiting for the flight I bumped into Annette Edmondson and congratulated her on her olympic medal. She was a little amazed to be recognised but of course we had also seen her live in Melbourne at the world titles. Annette has also been up near Girona and was headed home.

Arriving in Dubai - to even longer queues at passport control... this is now surely one of the slowest airports in the world! Makes me think twice about stopping over there!

Along the way I had caught a cold and so Christine and I spent a very quiet day in Dubai, in fact I spent the entire day in bed, just venturing out for dinner at the Bayt Al Wakeel restaurant overlooking Dubai Creek. Fairly standard middle eastern food, but good quality and with a unique view, watching the abras and dhows plying the river. Spoilt somewhat by me being sick, but these things happen.

Then it was back to the hotel for an early night and an uneventful flight to Australia! Another great holiday comes to an end.

Day 2. Day trip to Abu Dhabi

We arrived without any great fuss at Dubai. Some delays getting through immigration, then again at the hotel waiting for our drive to turn up, but then it was off to Abu Dhabi for a day of sightseeing. Actually it is worth saying more about this. The delays at Dubai for passport control are really bad.  On both visits the queues were not physically long, they just went incredibly slowly. We spent MORE THAN AN HOUR in the queue. At 2am when you are tired this is enough to stretch the patience. In fact I will reconsider ever travelling through Dubai again.

Striking office building on the way to Abu Dhabi.
No problem with getting a window seat here

The drive from Dubai to Abu Dhabi is interesting. Not the same buzz of activity that there was in 2010, with many building sites standing idle. As you can see from the photo it was one of the better days in terms of visibility. The sky actually looked blue a bit :-)

Our main purpose for visiting Abu Dhabi was so that Christine could see the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. I had been there before but this was the first visit for Christine. Our timing meant that we only had a short time to see the inside but it was long enough, then a good look at the exterior with all that marble and inlay and tile work.

After that we headed down to the Corniche and had lunch overlooking the water followed by a visit to the Palace Hotel which I didn't enjoy at all. Ugly. Pretentious. Luxury for its own sake.

Then back to our hotel in Dubai for a beer, a swim in the pool, a quick dinner, online checkin for the morning's flight and a sleep.