I was expecting chaos. 

But as Barcelona's leafy avenues, strolling people and vivid architecture cradled my family, I relaxed into this wondrous city.

It was a Monday in May - the busy season yet to fire up. The immigration police had time to joke with us over our names and made my children smile. As we passed through the airport, only a few shadowed people milled around the cavernous spaces. 

We cheated time with a taxi ride to our hotel in the Gothic Quarter. There, our accommodation was a delight; tucked off La Rambla, the hotel's centre had been carved into a lush courtyard offering soft sofas and jugs of red sangria. Pleased by our clean family room with its bunkbeds and arm-swingable bathroom, we explored.

First on foot, around the port and along La Rambla, where gold-painted men and yellow-robed women moved only with the breeze. Then on a bus, where an open top afforded upward gazes at the buildings, with their tiles and carvings curving up towards the sky. Gaudi's giant sandcastle church wowed us with her curves.

We crept around the medieval streets again at night, finding tiny, darkened shops and eating paper cones filled with cured meat. 

We needed to post a parcel. The post office was a graceful, calm place, with a central decorative dome, short queues and a smiling staff member who used every word of her limited English to reassure us - the parcel would go to Dublin.

Our stay was brief. But we took long breaths. In beautiful Barcelona.