Goodbye Portugal - Hello Barcelona

Our last day in Portugal was a whirlwind of sights as the Sandlants did an awesome job of showing us around. We went into Lisbon today which is home to 4 million of Portugal's 10 million inhabitants. First stop was Christo Rei - a massive monument and statue of Jesus from the top of which you get a great view over all of Lisbon. From there we went over to the Lisbon side of the river and saw a movie on Lisbon's origins and

the most beautiful church, which was part of a monastery and dated from the 1500's. Unbelieveably that is the first church we have been to see in Europe so far.
 Inevitably, food was also top of the list and the Sandlants took us to a wonderful baguette shop, which despite the line that ran out of the shop and down the street,  didn't take us long to get hold of these wonderful hot chicken and salad baguettes with the ubiquitous (in Portugal anyway), hot chips and garlic aioli. The kids had a great time running around in the open spaces and the weather was lovely, albeit freezing if you were in the wind. Portugal is on the Atlantic coast of course, rather than the Med. The water temps therefore are 15 deg C is winter but only climb to 16 deg C in summer, so it's pretty chilly water even for the hardy kiwis. The Sandlant Surfers are in steamers all year round.

The kids really enjoyed each others company and roamed the neighbourhood and played as much rugby as they could - Luke enjoyed the company of some boys to play rugby with. Thanks heaps Craig and Leann for your awesome hospitality and we look forward to seeing you at home June 1 - have a great time with Phil and Mike and a fun holiday before you come home to brave the winter! O, and do you think you could bring home a case of that red wine!

An early start this morning and we were in Barcelona at 10am. Liam is pretty exhausted so once we found our way to our apartment the kids watched a movie and Chris and I went out for supplies.  Just  2 blocks from the apartment is a lovely market and supermarket - despite my phrase book we end up with 600 grams of ham instead of 6 slices and our beautiful block of gouda style cheese - 'Is it okay for slicing?' - de-rinded and sliced for us! I have given myself (and the boys agree), 10 out of 10 for the apartment we have. It is in the Eixample District of Barcelona and very close to everything we need to see and is on the top floor of a beautiful old building. The apartment is tiny by our standards but has 2 bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and a sitting.dining room off the lounge. It is decorated beautifully in a sort of mix of modern/shabby chic. We look out onto the rooftop terraces of other apartments and have a rooftop garden we can use ourselves. That's all we have really seen so far as everyone is now asleep despite it being 3pm - siesta time! Love to all.

O, and PS: I have added a little more on 'commenting'to the top left box on the blog.  Commenting has been a bit problematic for some, hopefully this will clear things up cos we love to hear from you. X