Friday 16 November

Still didn’t manage to get up much before noon. After coffee, we took a lovely walk through Barcelona’s Barri Gotic – the Gothic Quarter – an area of ancient lanes and trendy shops. We marvelled at the Gothic Cathedral, which has a flock of geese around a fountain in its courtyard. We ambled down towards the seafront, the sky growing ever darker and more threatening.

As we reached the Parc Ciutadella, the heavens opened. We ran through an incredible downpour, and took shelter in a greenhouse. A greenhouse which just happened to have a bar in it! We had two cups of coffee and two huge snifters of brandy while water pounded on the glass above and around us.

After a little while, it stopped and we walked around the park, checking out the fabulously over-the-top fountain, La Cascada. The storm’s winds (which, according to the next day’s headlines, were measured at 145km/h) had torn branches off the trees in the park, and we found these weird alien-looking seeds, like huge green testicles.

We had planned to go to the zoo, largely to stare at Snowflake, the albino gorilla, but the zoo was shut, so we went to the Arc de Triomphe instead. (Yes, they have one of those in Barcelona, too.) We took the Metro to Placa d Espanya and ascended the escalators past the magnificent National Art Museum of Catalunya to the Olympic village. As we reached the top of the hill, the sun came out of the dark storm clouds. The huge modern telecommunications tower looked amazing in the dramatic lighting.

We walked back down, past Poble Espanyol, which we decided to come back and visit another time.

That night we went out to the usual bars, and then went to the club, Metro. Although we danced on the main dance floor most of the evening, we did take a couple of turns on the flamenco floor. I found the TV screens above each stall of the Gents' urinal a bit off-putting and counter-productive. After surveying the club from a dark corner near the bar, watching for clandestine transactions, we found what we were looking for and had a fantastic evening. Marcus bumped into a guy he knew from Sweden. “Who’s the top, and who’s the bottom?” he asked us.

Saturday 17 November

Although we were dead tired, we decided to go to Parc Guell. We took the Metro to Lesseps and then walked up past fabulous villas, many of which were now occupied by squatters. We couldn't make up our minds which one we wanted for our summer home. Just before we arrived at the park, I asked Marcus if he knew what to expect. "No idea," he said. His face, when he saw the fabulous, surreal Gaudi creations, was a picture.

They must have had some damn fine drugs in the water in Catalonia around the turn of the 20th century. You had Gaudi, Picasso, Dali and Miro, all producing surreal masterworks. Gaudi's work was on a far bigger scale than the others. His instruction when designing Parc Guell was to produce a residential estate. His solution: molten benches, leaning pillars, mosaic dragons, phallic turrets - a surreal landscape, dreamlike or nightmarish. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the fine citizens of Barcelona decided it was too bizarre for a residential estate.

We hadn't eaten all day, and we were both shaky from hunger, a situation that was remedied - I'm ashamed to say - by a visit to Burger King. Later that night, we made up for it by going to Taxidermista, a lovely restaurant on Placa Reial. The building which houses the restuarant was once a taxidermist's shop, and has been converted very intelligently into a wonderful dining space, with some of the original fixtures, some new, and a glass floor looking down onto the kitchen. Good food, too.

We went to Metro again that night, leaving at 6am. We paid a quick visit to Acido Oxido, a heaving after-hours club, but Marcus had a bit of a turn - he couldn't handle the crowds, or their sheer freakishness, and we left after just half an hour. The skies on our short walk home were beautiful - pale blue with pink cotton-wool clouds. This augured well for the day ahead, but we only got up at 5pm, so probably missed a gorgeous day.

[more to follow later...]