Looking at you, Ben

Snapped on the Mo Lo to Embankment shuttle on an arctic afternoon

Tooley Street

Old and new on Tooley Street London...

The Shard - nearly there

Tower Bridge peeking through More London

Outside the Britain at War Museum

Barri Gotic

I always love walking tours and our 2.5hr guided walk around Barcelona's old town was another good one. Lots about Catalonia's history and culture, some Roman ruins, the story of a saint they still celebrate today and some sad reminders of the civil war.

Lots of skinny little streets

Well, something I've never seen before. Apparently Catalunyan nativity scenes have an 'intruder' - a farmer doing a poo

The two types of justice - swift (the birds) and slow (the turtle)

Nice crypt had a garden and nativity scene in the middle

Roman columns smack bang in the middle of an apartment complex

Barcelona highlights - Gaudi's Pedrera apartment

On top of the roof of Pedrera at sunset was a really nice moment in Barcelona. I'm glad we braved the long queue on a windy night...

Oceanografico

Valencia's Oceanografico was an aquarium on another level. We spent hours there, seeing dolphins, walrus, penguins, sharks, turtles, sea horses...

It was set out in different climactic regions and just full of the most amazing information and variety of creatures...

City of Arts and Sciences

Valencia has a fabulous complex at the end of the park which used to be a river (too lazy right now to look up the full name) called the City of Arts and Sciences and we spent a day there exploring. These pics are just from around the outside of the buildings - the Hemisferic, Umbracle, Science Museum, Oceanografico and the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia.

Valencia

Needing some Vitamin D we headed to Barcelona and Valencia for a few days. Temperature the same as London, but I was reminded that the sky is actually high, and doesn't hang just above the tops of houses in a permanent shade of grey

Thanks to the tube strike it was an expensive and long taxi drive from Ben and Ara's for a flight to Barcelona, a night there in transit really and then a fast and comfortable train trip for two nights in Valencia...

We explored the old town, enjoyed a few menu del dia's, and spent an evening watching the festive Tottenham match in an Irish pub as is now almost tradition in between Christmas and New Years. Even went tourist style on the double decker red bus to get the lay of the land.

Some of the design was really beautiful, very art noveau...orange trees were everywhere...

Exploring - the old town was concentric circles so you could get a bit lost

After years of flooding, they damned the river, diverted it and turned it in to a park

One of the nice plazas