I’d arranged to meet Sharon at 10:00 and we walked to see the Sagrada Famila. This incredible structure has been under construction for over 125 years, partly under the guidance of Gaudi before he died. The estimated time of completion is still another 13 years ago by which time the building will have recovered its title of tallest structure in Barcelona with the completion of a 173m central spire. Stiill, the completion date’s as reliable as anything given to the FA for the new Wembley.

We wandered around and examined the inside and outside walls, the stained glass and the bizarre shapes used to hold this structure up. Carvings are all over the place and vary from traditional to very obscure or symbolic. The 1-hour plus wait to go up in the lift to see the view just wasn´t worth it to either of us, so we decided to skip it. If you want to do this, I suggest getting there early and queueing.

There was also a museum under the building with information on the construction and on Gaudi himself. A department was set aside where designers still work, building plaster models of the sections being worked on now. Its an incredible structure but I¨m still not sure if it’s ugly or not.

We next visited another respected and long-standing institution – KFC. Spain doesn´t have the Zinger! I settled for a fillet tower burger and chips without enough salt on. We next headed down to the port area via the Arc de Triomf and the park containing the Natural History Museum.

After a delicious ice cream, we boarded the cable car from the port to Miramar (€9) where we drank expensive beer and made friends with a scruffy black cat. There is supposed to be a furnicular railway up to the top but its still “being serviced” – we couldn’t even see the thing so it it must be back at the factory or something. Instead, we walked up the hill to the Castell de Montjuïc then got a different cable car partway down before strolling the rest of the way to my hostel There we enjoyed a hard-earned beer (me) and sangria (Sharon).

Showers and changes of clothes were required before we went out for dinner. Tonight we settled on a restaurant not far from Sharon´s place and paid a reasonable sum for two pasta dishes, some beer and a bottle of plonk.

We would be travelling far the next day so an earyl night was called for. OK; Sharon crashed when she got in. I stayed up till 2:30am on the internet. Whoops.