First day in Barcelona, Spain March 20-21, 2019

Off on another five week trip.  this time to Morocco, Spain and Portugal.  I got sick a week before we left and I'm still recovering (this was a nasty cold) when we leave on our 8 hour flight to London's Gatwick airport, a 5.5 hour layover, and then an 1.5 hour flight to Barcelona.  I can barely talk by the time we get to Barcelona, but we soldier on, and health improvement, although slow, is happening.  We are staying in the heart of the city near the Triumphant Arch, and the adjacent old quarter and the La Rambla.  We witnessed an interesting scene down by the waterfront...there are the usual illegal street vendors, all from Africa, that are selling sunglasses, knock off purses, etc on white sheets.  Suddenly three large police vehicles pull up and disgorge lots of police with riot gear on.  the vendors pull up their wares into their sheets within seconds and scatter.  A tense standoff occurs with some of the vendors yelling taunts at the police and the police standing off and looking.  They may have rounded up a few, but it seemed more like a show of force.  Ten minutes later it was business as usual.  Very dramatic though!  We'll be back to Barcelona in a couple of weeks, so more later on Barcelona.

 La Rambla

 Street vendors with wares gathered up

 Lots of newspeople here - There is a movement to have the Catalonia region break away from Spain

 La Catedral

 Market just off La Rambla

 Frieses by Picasso on a building near La Cathedral

 Scars left by bombing by Franco supporters in the Spanish Civil War

 Roman ruins

 Where Ferdinand and Isabella greeted Columbus on his return from the New World

Ancient Roman wall