One pretty morning, we headed down La Rambla, then turned right into the old city. We came upon a pretty, little square with this exquisite knife shop...

... a beautiful old church ...

... and an apartment building with a nice orange tree in front of it.

We walked down a street off the square and were treated to old building with hand-painted tiles such as this one.

Another beautiful tile decorating a building on the same street.

The same street was once the home of Monserrat Caballe, the opera singer.

Another decorative tile surrounded by a decorative relief sculpted into the wall.

Continuing our walk, we reached the old walls of the ancient city.

Right next to the walls is a modernistic sculpture consisting of letters that spell out Barcelona.

We spent a lot of our time on the extensive Barcelona subway system. We bought a five day pass at the beginning of our stay and used it to travel everywhere. Trains are frequent and the system is very heavily used by natives, students, and tourists.

Many of our walks took us into Plaza Catalunya, a huge plaza at the end of La Rambla.

Another walk took us to Barceloneta, a district that sits by the Mediterranean Sea. We took in the sea at sunset the evening we were down in Barceloneta.