Long time no post

Hi everybody! These 10 days were the longest gap for quite a while, but I wasn't being lazy. I had several days so full of stuff (and without internet access) that I could hardly breathe, never mind post.

Those of you who have been to Barcelona might have recognised this glorious Gaudi building the La Pedrera. I have been to Barcelona many times before to conferences, but never had the time to really look around. This time I went with 6 friends to an orienteering event and a lot of sightseeing. Having seen the Park Guell first we came to the street where the two most famous apartment buildings by Gaudi could be found. The choice was between La Pedrera and the Casa Batlló and our choice fell on the former. It was cheaper and we came upon it first.

It was a real adventure. I always liked Gaudi, but this amount of crazy exhuberance really got me. His colours, tiles, forms and innovations pleased me and provided me with endless amusement. We passed the other building later and I must admit that was really pretty too, but in a more fairy castle way than La Pedrera. We walked through the Bari Gotic later and admired its cathedral - first of many on this trip - and finally climbed up to register for our O event on Montjuic hill.

On our way down we found ourselves in the middle of a festival at the Placa Espanya where the most impressive fountains delight the eye.

Finally the first day of orienteering dawned. It was a sprint race in the old quarter of Barcelona, the Bari Gotic. My course was only 1.5km, but it still took me over 16 minutes. I am no good at sprinting any more, especially in the warm. The weather was definitely unlike November, although rain was promised. It, however, failed the materialise on Day 1 which was quite a pleasure.

Day 2 was announced to be a long race, but 5.1km with 165m of climb sounded a bit too far even for me. As it happens I coped with it well and finished in just over the hour, which is not bad for me in the state I am nowadays. I won W55 (the oldest class available), although by the end I was the only one competing. One lady never turned up and the other one gave up on the long course on the Sunday. My winnings included a lovely middle size rucksack with the event logo printed on it, added to the lovely event shirt and bottoms we were all given totally free. I love the Spanish, they are friendly, helpful, generous and laid back. The two major sightseeing events over the weekend were the Pueblo Espanya and the Sagrada Familia.

I can't say anything that hasn't already been said about the Sagrada Familia, but I must mention how amazed I was at the progress achieved inside since I last saw it about 10 years ago. It now looks like a church, even though they will not have finished building it before 2026 at the earliest. Monday was spent on an excursion to Monstserrat. I wasn't that bothered with the cathedral, monastery, the Black Madonna or the singing, but the environment itself was breath taking. After an hour's journey by train we got on a cable car manufactured and installed in the 1880's by a German firm from Leipzig. It is still going strong, although the sight of the cable going up virtually perpendicularly worried me a bit.

After the cable car we took a further trip on a funicular, to arrive in a landscape weird to say the least. The name Montserrat comes from "Saw Mountain". The penny just dropped as I wrote this that what we are talking about here is a "Serrated Mountain" which it certainly it was.

On Tuesday we caught a very early plane to Bergamo in Italy. That was an easy flight, followed by a short sight seeing trip round Bergamo's old medieaval centre and a train journey into Milan. By the time we found the hotel and checked in there was not much time for sightseeing, but managed to get down to the Dome to have a quick look around.

Wednesday we checked out, left our luggage in the storage room and went into Milan to have more sightseeing. We got some tickets to view the Last Supper in the afternoon, then visited the Sforza Fort, which currently houses a large number of collections both historical and artistic and which you could not do justice to in 3 weeks, never mind in 2 hours. Still, the bits of antiquities, furniture, pottery and glass we saw were sumptuous.

Finally the two absolute highlights of the trip concluded it in a magnificent manner. First, we saw The Last Supper, which I have never realised was a fresco. Unfortunately, it is not in very good condition, which is not surprising. Afer all, it spent several centuries being on the wall of a refectory and then suffered from unskilled restoration. Having said that, the magic of Leonardo da Vinci's genius shone right through the damage and missing paint. We only had 15 minutes to view it, which was nowhere near enough to take it all in, but I am glad I went. There is something special in that picture which talks to you.

Finally finally, we returned to the Dome and climbed all 160 of its steps (plus a good few later)all the way to its roof. Those airy, gothic arches were truly magical, I didn't want to come off, I enjoyed it so much. A real spiritual experience, not meaning anything to do with God or religion, just with the genius of the human spirit, mind and hands that created such beauty so long ago. Unfortunately, there was scaffolding everywhere, as the Milan Dome is a bit like the Forth Bridge: you will never get a time when some part of it will not be under repair and/or renovation.

We caught the train OK to Malpensa in the evening and were home by a few minutes past midnight. Now for sorting out the photos, videos, look at hundreds of e-mails and Facebook messages and just get back to normal - whatever that may be!