Taking business to Barcelona!

It was time for our annual European conference, and we were off to my all time fave euro- city BARCELONA!

Time to check in – Goodbye Manchester, Hello Barcelona!

Conference Day One (annoyingly I never take enough photo’s at these things, I’m usually too busy making notes!)

I even bagged myself a cheeky award…and made it onto the wall of fame!

Evening One: Beautiful castle for our recognition night…

So this is what being a princess feels like!

Celebrating with my beautiful friend Sarah.

After dancing the night away, it was time to relax by the hotel rooftop pool. It. Was. So. Hot.

Beautiful view overlooking the city.

A post- conference exploration through my favourite part of Barcelona – La Rambla

The markets brought a tough choice between fresh fruit (smelt DIVINE) or sweets, the fruit smelt so good I grabbed a basket and started picking…

Evening quickly drew in, which only meant one thing – another ‘do’ to attend (I know, it’s a hard life!).

Celebrating in style with the girls…

With the conference done and dusted, it was time to check into our second hotel of the trip and put our best tourist foot forward!

We went for a meal in the town square, and were serenaded by a Bob Marley perfect sound-a-like. Dreamy first evening, finished off with ice cold mojitos and an evening stroll through La Ramblas back to the hotel.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog (hey!) you’ll already know how obsessed I am with beautiful architecture… And I’m sure we’ve all seen the breath taking Sagrada Família before (even if you’ve only seen it online), it really is an outstanding building.

For the geeks out there, here’s some facts I love about the Sagrada Família:

– Construction of Sagrada Família had commenced in 1882 and Gaudí became involved in 1883, taking over the project and transforming it with his architectural and engineering style, combining Gothic and curvilinear Art Nouveau forms.

– Gaudí devoted his last years to the project, and at the time of his death at age 73 in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete.

– Construction passed the midpoint in 2010, with some of the project’s greatest challenges remaining and an anticipated completion date of 2026, the centenary of Gaudí’s death.

I’ve made a promise to myself that at some point this year I’m going to go back to Barcelona and take some better quality photographs of the building with my new camera, but until then…

Beautiful, intricate detailing…

There’s so many more gorgeous buildings around the city, I did get a little snap – happy!

Building stalking over, we had a few hours left before our flight. We headed over to the cable cars to see our city in all its glory!