Beachy Keen - Barceloneta

I keep a close eye on the weather forecast on my phone.

When I saw that this weekend called for sunshine and in the mid-60s, I promptly told Nick we would be taking a beach day. No complaints from him.

We have heard mixed review about Barceloneta Beach.

It's a tourist trap for sure and an easy place to get pick-pocketed. However, it's the closest beach to the city center, making it easily accessible.  

We knew we wanted to visit Barceloneta at least once during our stay here in Spain - and since it's not tourist/beach season yet we thought yesterday would be a great day to go.

My personal take on Barceloneta:

It's a nice, large beach. I've been to better (hello, Hawaii!) -

but the water was a beautiful turquoise and the sand was fairly clean. The views of Barcelona up the shoreline were quite nice.  I think we will be avoiding Barceloneta during the summer months, however, since it will be crazy crowded.

Paisley and Cruz's take on Barceloneta:

As long as there is sand to play with/roll around in/and eat, they are in Beachy Heaven!

When the sun was out, it was nice and warm.

We all enjoyed getting a good dose of Vitamin D.

Our fearless leader even took a dip in the Mediterranean.

He may have been the only other one out there without a wetsuit - thus proving his manhood even more!

 Meanwhile me and my beach babes were quite content to stay back and bury our toes in the sand. 

Forget pedicures - just give my feet a beach!

Leave it to Nick to  bring squirt guns for entertainment.

This next sequence shows the time he squirted his own innocent daughter right in the face 

(in fairness to him it was an accident - he was aiming for her shirt :) )

She's such a good sport, and promptly forgave him.

After a little beach time we walked up the board walk-

taking in the view of the sea, the entertainment of the crazy people, and the aromas of the catch of the day.

It was glorious - even for this sea-food hating food snob.

(she ALWAYS has to have her "wetties" on)

Paisley just chatting it up with the lobsters.

Little does she know about their fate...

On our walk back to the bus we spotted last weeks adventure up on the hill-

Nothing like a day at the beach to put our lives in perspective.

We feel so blessed to have these wonderful opportunities right now.

It has been a long, hard road coming to Spain (and continues to be), but days like this make it all worth it.