Pamplona

In our last city before Barcelona, we had a relatively relaxed day. We started with a tour of the Baluarte building-the cultural center of the city, modeled after the Kursaal in San Sebastian, but detailed a lot better. It’s also integrated into the city in a very different way-turning its back to the city fortress’s ruins and creating a public plaza facing the old city. We then went to see an interesting traffic circle that integrated vehicle circulation with pedestrian circulation and a public plaza. It solved the problem of having to cross several streets around a traffic circle just to continue down a street.

We then braked for a picnic lunch and to watch USA play against Algeria (a nerve-wreaking game that we won in the first 30 seconds or so of second half overtime, allowing us to move on to the second round!)

We finished at a small museum and discussed some of our favorite things we’ve seen thus far. Now onto our next and final stop, Barcelona.