Lolleria to Barcelona

My lovely daughter treated me to a trip to Barcelona in March 2013 for my 60th birthday present. I was a little anxious about travelling on Spanish trains on my own but overall things worked out ok. Colin took me to our nearest rain station at Xativa. I bought a return ticket to Valencia for only 6.euros return, very reasonable I thought. I boarded a train and after 45 minutes arrived in Valencia. After a bit of messing around trying to find the auto bus to take me to Valencia Nord trains station I finally found the bus stop which was in fact very near to where I had disembarked from my train. Strange how you miss things when you are anxious. I boarded the bus and got chatting to an American couple who had been in Valencia for the Fallas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtLGHFT5SWc   they told me that they were going to Barcelona so I decided to follow them and hope that they knew where to get our train. In any event they went into McDonalds so I decided to make my own way. The train was very impressive and being high speed only took 4 hours to reach Barcelona.
My daughter met me at the station and we had a coffee and then tackled the metro to get to our  H 10 hotel. We managed fairly well although needed the help of a friendly policeman and a taxi to reach our destination. After we had unpacked we took a stroll to get our bearings. We walked down to the harbour and found a restaurant to eat paella. The food was reasonably priced but I found the paella rather greasy. Arriving back at the hotel we were both tired and decided to have an early night.

Day 2
My daughter had visited Barcelona before so she had some idea of its attractions. We made our was by walking and metro to the city centre and strolled down Las Ramblas.

http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/ramblas/barcelona-las-ramblas.html
We also wandered into the small and narrow lanes housing churches, gift shops, restaurants, cafes and bars. We managed to get lost but thats what tourists do! We walked for seven hours and I was absolutely knacked. We dragged ourselves back to the hotel and fell asleep.

Need to go and eat my fish and chips will continue this tomorrow.
take care be good
Pat