Maritime Museum Barcelona

During our stay in Barcelona in January we visited the Maritime Museum, which is situated at the end of Las Ramblas. It is housed in the former shipyard building, which is quite impressive to see. There are quite a few ships and boats to see and one of the highlights is a replica of a 60m long royal galley of the Admirals of the Juan de Austria from the Battle of Lepanto 7 October 1571.

Part of the museum was getting new exhibitions while we were there, there is a restaurant and a possibly to sit outside which we did enjoying the sunshine. According to their website it is closed on Mondays but we were there on a Monday, maybe that has changed so best to check there site. Kids are free which is also a bonus!

Since it is right across from the marina you can then go on a boat trip or just check out the boats. We wondered around the marina afterwards. This is just one of the many things to do and see with kids in Barcelona, we both found it quite interesting so worth a visit!

Fishing Boats

While we were in Scotland we took a trip to Arbroath, one of the reasons was to celebrate my mother`s birthday. Afterwards we walked around the harbour, it was an extremely windy day, but quite a sight to behold though.

As you can imagine were was quite a lot of fishing boats in the harbour, of all shapes and sizes. I found them quite interesting to look at.

Enjoy the weekend!

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Some links to peruse!

There are lots of great films coming in the next few months, I am going to see Deadpool this weekend. But Batman v Superman looks good too

Continuing on the movie theme, Donald Trump played by Johnny Depp!

Ellen with the President!

Photo of the Week - Crail Harbour

During the October holidays Alessio and myself went to Scotland for 9 days and on one of those days we went to visit the lovely town of Crail. Crail is a very picturesque place, full of lovely houses, buildings and of course the harbour.

I will not be visiting Scotland again until next October, it does seem like a long time away. The reason is that in April when I would normally go again, I am going to Japan.

Sister Jane!

These photos are from the beginning of March, Alessio and I went to our local park. I guess it must have been a nice day for late winter. Alessio took his bike, cycled around and played a while on the swings too. There was a boat there called Sister Jane, in fact it is still there now. And I thought it looked nice and at first I really thought that black bird was real. I kept on thinking why does it not move and eventually I realised it was a fake!

So another weekend is over and a few more day left and October is over too! Soon it is Halloween, let the spookiness begin!!

Oslo Waterfront

My building

Captain Rutherford

Reminded us of Berlin

In Oslo during the spring holiday we spent a couple of hours exploring the waterfront area Aker Brygge. We were all very impressed, there are plenty of restaurants, bars, cafes and shops to keep the visitors very busy. We were looking for lunch but the prices in this area proved to be a bit to much for us.

There is a museum Astrup Fearnley right at the end of walkway, we never went to it, but the building itself looks interesting. It apparently opens up to a pebble beach but we did not see that. There is lots of great architecture and design in this area and I could have just walked around looking at the different buildings.

This area is full of flats and offices, I just loved the purple patterned building with blue tiles (7th photo), also the long windows at the top look amazing. You can just image the wonderful view. Well I am quite sure they will be extremely expensive to buy or rent.

You can definitely pass away hours here and along the other side of the waterfront where the Akerhus Castle is situated.

A Glance of Malmo

Old City Hall

Lilla Torg

Cafe on a ship

Viking Boat

Library

Turning Torso

During our week long stay in Copenhagen we took a trip over the Oresund bridge which is longest combined rail and road bridge in Europe. A very pleasant and comfortable journey in no time we reached Malmo, the third largest city in Sweden.

First of all we wondered around the city to get our bearings as you do on city visits, we saw lots of interesting design shops, which we all wanted to look at especially my mother.

For lunch we bought sandwiches from a supermarket and found a lovely park to sit and eat them, luckily near by there was a wonderful playground which kept Alessio happy for a while.

In the afternoon we took a boat cruise, it was nice to get a fresh breeze for a bit. The boat cruise took us to lots of places we would not have had time to walk there, Malmo being big port which is still active we heard lots of information about it.

We stopped for a glass of wine after the boat tour finished while deciding what we should do next, I wanted to see the Turning Torso building. So we began our walk to see it and it took a lot longer than we thought and it was very hot too. Finally we got to it and my father and I found it quite interesting, unlike my mother!

If you are in Copenhagen, it is well worth a trip to see this city, we did think about visiting more places in this part of Sweden, but decided to see more of Denmark.

Next year will be visiting Norway for the first time, I am really looking forward to that!