Barcelona

Day 1 – We made it. It was a close call, but we did it.

Our flights were with Air Canada and I’ve been worried since the day we got them about our layover time. We flew into Toronto and had to go through a security check there. We only had 1 hour 15 minutes to get off the plane, through customs and to the other side of the airport. Even if we left on time I thought we had a low percentage of actually making it.

Well, Air Canada confirmed their reputation of always being delayed and we left Seattle 45 minutes late. You can imagine I was anxious as all get out. Turns out though, these two ladies in the seats in front of me were also going to Barcelona and on our cruise. By the time we got off the plane we had to hit the ground running. And you all know me and I don’t run.

As we finally got off the gangway and were officially in run mode. One of the gals that we met stopped a guy in one of those carts you see in the airport and asked him if he could take us to the E gates. He said hop on.

Off we went. And I gotta tell ya, if we had not, we would not have made our plane. It was already boarding and we stood for like 5 minutes before they called our zone.

Phew. Safe and sound, and a little sweaty, the rest of the flight was uneventful.

We landed in Barcelona, found our driver and were off to Hotel Gaudi.

We stayed in Hotel Gaudi last time we were in Barcelona and loved it so much we figured we might as well stay again. Prices have gone up significantly. Plus, the room we got was a bit more expensive. We were on the top floor, and we had a terrace.

It was a great hotel. The view from our terrace looked down on the Palau Gaudi roof which has several “Gaudi” style statues.

We didn’t really have any plans for the day we arrived, so we dropped off our suitcases and went in search of lunch. Hotel Gaudi is on Las Ramblas which is a major (and touristy) walking street. Its tree lined walkways are covered with restaurants, flower shops, ice cream, and more. It’s great for people watching.

So, we found a restaurant and ordered our tapas and drinks. Janet had a sangria, and I had a beer. We asked for the small ones. Their smalls are almost 30 oz of liquid.

We stopped at this restaurant primarily because I saw on the menu Fried Olives. What? I had never thought to deep fry a green olive. It was delicious. We also ordered jamon with melon and croquettes.

The real entertainment, though, was Janet. She was taking a drink of her sangria, started to drop it then in the attempt to recover from starting to drop it, she spilled most of it on her. I looked over to see what the commotion was about and saw and piece of apple on her shoulder and her entire front side covered in Sangria. We haven’t stopped talking about it yet.

We sat there for quite a while. Partly because of all the alcohol we had to consume (“had to”) and partly because the sky opened up and it rained. Poured actually. But we were safe under a restaurant tent.

After that, our room wasn’t quite ready so we had to find something to fill our time. I was exhausted so wanted to sit for a bit, and truth be told I needed to find a bathroom. Thankfully there are two Starbucks on Las Ramblas. A teeny tiny on that had the dirtiest bathroom I’d ever seen and no toilet paper. And a huge on that was clean, tidy and had toilet paper. You can image which one I stopped in.

While I was doing that Janet walked up to the top of Las Ramblas and took photos and just checked things out.

Finally, we headed to our hotel since our room would be ready.

That’s when we discovered what a fantastic room we had.

We walked a long way to get dinner. We were on the hunt for paella. Which isn’t hard to find. But it is hard to find a good one. We think we found the restaurant we ate at in 2015 and sat down.

That night I dealt with some leg cramps. They seem to be part of my travel experience these days. I brought electrolytes to help with that but it sure didn’t help that night.

The next day we got up and had our breakfast in the hotel. My standard European breakfast of ham and cheese on a baguette. My god it’s so good.

Then we were off to Parque Güell. Parque Güell is a failed park up on the hill in Barcelona. I don’t remember the whole story but Mr. Güell bought the land and wanted Gaudi to do the design. Mr. Güell was a well off man in Barcelona and told the well off that only the best families would live in this park. Turned out only Mr. Güell, Gaudi and their lawyer lived there. That’s why it was a failed “park”. The rich didn’t come.

It’s a beautiful green space for the city now. Tourism keeps that place a float…and how. It was packed with people from all over the world. PACKED!

Once we were done there we tracked down the Hop On Hop Off bus and, well, hopped on. We had a tour scheduled for La Sagrada Familia and we needed to get lunch before.

We got off at the La Sagrada Familia stop and were FLOORED at the number of people there. It was busy when we were there in 2015, but My GOD. It was wall to wall people. And you all know how good I am around so many people.

We had time for lunch, so we walked down the street and found an open table. The waiter moved a table for us, so we figured this was turning out to be a good spot. We were wrong. We only wanted a ham and cheese sandwich and a Fanta. When we sat and ordered he was “ok” with giving us the ham and cheese, but we HAD to order an alcoholic drink. Fanta was only to go. What? So we said no thank you, got up and left. The guy was so rude and didn’t seem to care at all that he just lost money.

It worked out in our favor though. We walked around the corner and found this cute “very little” place where the woman was friendly and welcoming. We ordered and she said, “go on upstairs and I’ll bring it up.” A couple minutes later we had our sandwiches and a SUPER sized Fanta. I was in heaven.

We walked a little further to the meet up place for our tour and waited until it was time to go.

I don’t even know what to say about La Sagrada Familia. It’s the most unique basilica I’ve ever seen. It’s been under construction for a hundred years and still isn’t finished. It has followed Gaudi’s original plan, mostly, but each engineer on the job has put their own touches on it. The tour guide pointed out the façade that was constructed while a Japanese engineer was in charge all those people have a very definite Japanese face and eyes.

Inside the basilica is just amazing. The outside is fascinating, but the inside is just beautiful. It’s supposed to represent a forest and nature in general. The light that comes in just makes the place glow. It was beautiful in 2015 and even more gorgeous today.

Finishing there I was pooped. We hopped back on the bus and headed to Las Ramblas. We strolled down the avenue until we found a place for dinner. Janet and I both had Sangria, split a pizza and the weirdest Caesar salad I’d ever had. It had fried chicken nuggets on it and the lettuce was the spring mix that has what I call “weeds”.

We sat and did our people watching and amused ourselves thoroughly.

We walked back to the hotel but not before stopping for gelato. I mean, it was on the corner of our hotel so it only seemed right.

Tomorrow we get on the ship. It's gonna be a whirlwind trip again. I wonder if Janet and I will ever take a trip that is relaxing. Probably not.

Barcelona - Day 3

Number of steps: over 17,000+

Number of drinks consumed: 1 café con leche, 1 Fanta, water, 32 oz of Estrella beer, one small sangria, one small free beer, and one coca cola
Number of tapas consumed: 0
Number of ham/cheese sandwiches: 1

Today we were up "early" in that we had to be at La Pedrera (the quarry) at 9:30. La Pedrera is one of the Gaudi houses. It's an apartment building now, and has a couple of residents. Otherwise it's  all about the tourists. 

 

The rooftop is really the most amazing thing about this place. Gaudi believed the chimney stacks and air vents didn't have to look ordinary or boring. Instead he thought they should look interesting. And oh boy do they. 

 

 

 

 

The building was constructed in 1910 and has recently been "updated" and refurbished. At the time it was constructed it was the talk of the town. Many people said Guadi was either a genius or crazy. 

 

From La Pedrera we stopped and had ourselves a Fanta. I don't know what it is about Fanta in Europe, but I just can't get enough.

 

We walked a couple of blocks to Casa Batllo (bat YO). Another Gaudi house. This one, unlike la Pedrera was PACKED! I mean a ton of people…all pushing and shoving and being rude. Gah..I hate crowds.

 

 

 

Casa Batllo was built in 1906 and like La Pedrera was the talk of the town. The inside of this house feels a lot like you're under water. Which is what Gaudi wanted you to feel.  There didn't appear to be a single straight wall. 

 

 

 

 

It's roof, while not as impressive as La Pedrera, still showed Gaudi's flair for decorating the chimneys and making a rooftop somewhat fantastical.

 

 

When we purchased our hop on and hop off bus tour, we were given a coupon book. Always looking for a deal, we decided to try one of the little tapas bars in the book. Let me just say…WORSE meal of the trip. I'm still not sure what the meat was. The hot dog was normal, but the "beef burgers" we were questioning what "beef" was in it at all. The reason we went…free beer. The beer was good.

From lunch we did the west side of the city hop on hop off bus tour. Absolutely nothing of interest on that side of the city. At least to me and Janet. It was a long tour and we were thankful the sun was out, while it was chilly on the bus, it wasn't raining. 

 

Finishing our tour we realized it was time for tapas. We  walked into this tapas bar called Puratapa. Again, we had a coupon so why not. The first one was so unsuccessful, this one HAD to be good. And oh boy was it. We had more of the Iberian jamon on tomato bread and fried potatoes. The best part were the 32 oz of Estrella beer. Oh…my…Goodness that cold beer tasted so good. We didn't finish it all, so there was no stumbling into the hotel.  

 

On our way back to the hotel we noticed thousands…I mean THOUSANDS of people lining the road of la Rambla.  This caught our attention so we decided to stand around and wait. Turns out it was a Easter weekend religious procession that happens every year. It was fascinating to see. I love stumbling into cultural things like that.

 

It started with military looking guys on horses, followed by a bunch of people dressed in black robes, with black pointy hats. Young people carrying crosses, some had chains wrapped around their feet (carrying sins I imagine). Then women dressed in what I assumed was mourning clothes. Then the Jesus statue being carried by men underneath the carriage. Then the guys with the green hats came. Then the Madonna. The interesting thing when the Madonna came into view people cheered. They all did the crossing of themselves and cheered. It was fascinating. Then when the procession ended, everyone dispersed and went about their business. I'll post more photos of this when I have a better Internet speed.

 

According to our hotel lobby guy – whom we called Jorge because we never got his name – it happens every year and is a tradition of people of Barcelona. 

 

For dinner we walked down to the 7 Portas to try to get in again. The guy taking names said quince minutos – which is 15. But as we sat we realized he might have meant ciquenta – which is 50. We had a glass of sangria and they brought us a little bowl of olives to munch on. I did the munching. Janet did not. 

 

Finally our name was called. We were traipsed through this enormous dining room, upstairs and seated in the table in the corner. I kinda felt like they were putting us where we’d cause the least amount of commotion. 

 

I ordered a coca cola and Janet aqua con gas. Then the paella menu came out. What to get? Janet was done having paella (I can’t understand that) and so ordered some cannelloni. I, on the other hand, ordered paella. The menu said the paella came with chicken, pork OR sausage and may include any type of fish from squid to shrimp. Oh boy…I’m not a seafood person so this should be interesting. 

 

Back during my first visit to Spain, we ordered paella a lot. And it really was the first time I had ever really shelled cooked shrimp.  The first shrimp I picked up was clearly a mama shrimp since she had all her baby eggs still attached. Totally grossed me out. 

 

This paella not only had a shrimp, but this enormous shrimp like thing with claws. It wasn’t until our next trip to la Boqueria that I determined its name. Turns out they are called Cigara escamaria. I wasn’t sure what it would taste like and it took me forever to get into. Finally, the meat was the texture of lobster and it had that sorta flavor. Not something that’s pleasant to me. Blech. But I ate it.

 

The rest of the paella had mussels and this strange rubbery white chunks of meat – I assumed was calamari. It was good paella that’s for sure. Brown in color not yellow. I learned that paella comes in many different varieties and the traditional paella I think of, isn’t all that traditional. 

Tomorrow we’re heading to the beach to spread some of Dad’s ashes. I have mixed emotions about this in that I don’t want to be sad all day. Dad would have loved Barcelona. He loved Spain so it seems only fitting we leave some of him here. 

Barcelona - Day 2

Number of steps: over 15,000+
Number of drinks consumed: 1 Fanta, 32 oz sangria, coffee con leche, water
Number of tapas consumed: 3
Number of jamon/cheese sandwiches: 2
Today we woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed. Ready to take on Barcelona. With the sleep wiped out of our eyes we went down to breakfast. 

We weren't really sure what to expect as several of the reviews said the breakfasts were horrible. We had a backup plan to go to la Boqueria for breakfast if it was bad. Turned out it was fantastic. They had two espresso makers ready to brew you a fresh cup of coffee, hot milk ready for your café con leche and all the fixings of a European continental breakfast.  Pastries, fruit, yogurt, toast, cereal…and my personal favorite, ham and cheese with hard crusted - but soft in the middle - bread, and an assortment of salamis.  What were those reviewers thinking? They also had some warmed items like scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon. Which I couldn't imagine why you'd want to eat when there was a hard role, ham and cheese for the taking. 

 

Filled up on goodness we headed out. Our first stop was the hop on hop off tour of the East side, and in my opinion, more interesting side of Barcelona. I love these hop on hop off busses. They let you see so much of the city with little to no effort. The guide was a recording and was right on with all the sights.

 

The tour started and ended at Placa Catalunya. After we finished we were both famished. Café Zurich was right on the corner and while we assumed it was a tourist trap, with tourist trap prices, we thought the people watching would be worth it. And oh boy was it. 

 

Lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich and an Orange Fanta. I love Fanta in Europe. It tastes sooo different. Janet had a beer and ham/cheese sandwich. We ate and watched as so many different types of people walked by. It was very obvious who were the tourists and who were locals just trying to get through the crowd to get to work. 

 

 

We had to be at the tourist information desk at 3 pm for our Picasso tour so to kill time we wandered around Placa Catalunya. So many things going on there…so many groups of teenagers out on spring break trips. Ugh.

 

Our Picasso tour guide, it turned out, was none other than our buddy Carlos from the la Sagrada Familia tour. Again we were blown away with his knowledge and how much he clearly had a passion about art and specifically Picasso. 

 

 

He walked us all of the Gothic Quarter neighborhood point out old haunts of Picasso. One of which is the 4 Cats. 

 

Famous for being where Picasso and his buddies used to hang out and draw. The walls are lined with Picasso paintings. Janet and I surmised that they were likely replicas otherwise this little restaurant would need quite the security team.

 

From there we walked through the neighborhood of El Born which is where the museum is. He took us through many of the rooms in the museum explaining the differences in the work and really outlining all that Picasso accomplished. He really was a master at art. Some of the paintings he did when he was just 9 amazed me. I could barely draw a stick figure at 9, let alone almost perfect portraits of family and neighbors. 

 

Carlos released us to our own free time. Janet spent a few more minutes in the museum. I, on the other hand, was ready to sit. I sat out in the waiting area and watched a gaggle of teenagers from France get schooled in the history of Picasso.  None of them wanted to be there…and I wondered if that was how we looked in school the entire time some teacher was yammering on about some masterpiece. I sometimes wished I would have paid more attention. 

 

Out of the museum and we found our way back to la Rambla. I was amazed at how easy Barcelona was to get around. Their streets are all clearly marked, once you know where to look. The street names are all on the sides of the buildings. Once we figured that out, with a map in hand, we could find anything…and we did. 

 

 

 

We had seen these amazing sangrias being served on la Rambla and so decided it was time to stop and have one. Did I mention they were 32oz and served in a huge glass stein with one regular straw and one LONG straw? Janet ultimately broke her long straw and so had to resort to drinking like a normal person. Tapas accompanied our sangria. We wouldn't, after all, want to drink on an empty stomach. So we had Iberian jamon, the traditional bread wiped with a tomato, garlic shrimp and fried potatoes (reminded me of the cubed fried potatoes served every dinner at TASIS.) We ate. We drank. We drank some more. Then we tried to stand.

 

Oh boy…we were snookered. Walking back to the hotel was amusing - to say the least. We get there and Janet literally stumbles into the hotel and almost bites it. Thankfully the lobby was PACKED and everyone just looked at her. She said I abandoned her and just kept walking to the elevator - ignoring her…I don't remember that. I had been drinking after all. 

Barcelona - Day 1

Number of steps: over 20,000

Number of drinks consumed: 1 cava, 24oz of sangria, one fanta, water

Number of tapas consumed: 1- burger

On a scale of 1-10 how great was it? 10+

 

After what, I swear, was the longest flight ever, we touched down in Barcelona at 6:30 am. Now what? I thought our plane had us landing way later and  therefore I thought we had less time to waste before we could check in. Nope…now we had extra time.

 

We cabbed it to the hotel and left our luggage. It was grey and dreary outside, but it wouldn't rain on us, no way. Turns out…we were wrong. We stepped out into the alley way - that they call a street - and walked to the Columbus monument. In that time, we were drenched. And we didn't bring any coats - I mean what's a little rain to us Seattle-lites.

 

Back to the hotel…the desk guy was laughing at us…back to get our coats and then we were off. Not very many people on La Rambla at that time of the morning. It was peaceful and wet.

 

What's La Rambla?

 

La Rambla is this walking avenue lined with restaurants and vendors selling their stuff…lots of souveniers and what not. It’s a beautiful walk and starts at Placa Catalunya - the center of Catalonia - they say - and travels all the way down to the water front. Probably a good half of a mile walk. We ended up making that walk a number of times during the week.

 

It eventually got very crowded (especially on Saturday - but more on that later). The maddening crowd consisted of so many different types of people speaking a plethora of languages. It seemed extremely clean for as many people as there were. Turned out that every night a crew in bright green would clear the street of debris.

 

In fact, I found Barcelona quite clean all the way around. There was graffiti everywhere, like Rome, but you kinda begin to look past it - as if it's not even there or it blends into the building.

 

We walked up the way quite a bit and found La Boqueria. La Boqueria is an open air market. The moment you step inside you are met with so many smells, not all good I might add. The senses are overloaded with all there is to see and witness. It's clear it's actually a working market where the locals all buy their fresh fish, veggies and meats. In fact you could see them get a bit irritated with the tourists in their way. One old lady exclaimed, "Que Horror!" as we were all pressed together and she couldn't pass. It appears Spaniards eat anything and everything. Some of the things I saw there I wish I hadn't seen. And doubt I'll ever get out of my mind.

 

Anyhow, it's the kind of place that's a photographer's dream. So many textures. So many little goodies to shoot.  It was hard to not just keep the shutter button engaged non-stop.

 

 

 

 

Janet and I wandered through and experienced as much as we could. I'm thrilled we went in today as we discovered when we went back on Saturday just how busy and crazy that place could become.

 

As we walked through experiencing the sights and smells, we decided we should stop for a bite. It was getting near 10am and we were hungry.  After all we hadn't eaten in like 3 hours. We plopped ourselves on two rickety corner stools at a bar and ordered two cavas and a ham and cheese to split.

 

 

Cava is as Barcelona as it gets. It's basically a sparkling white wine…that they drink at breakfast. I mean, what's not to like? Wine at breakfast? Yes please! The old guy sitting down from us had a glass of red wine with his tortilla…so we felt like we were "fitting in".

 

After the snack at La Boqueria bar we decided we'd better get on our way to La Sagrada Familia. We had a tour scheduled and had about 2 hours. Instead of hopping in a cab, we decided (I'll reserve my opinion about whether this was smart or not.) to walk from where we were to the church. It looked like it was a bit of a ways, but we'd see a lot of the city and, what the heck? We were somewhat fresh off the plane, so we did. Later the hotel staff would laugh and look at us in amazement when we told them we walked there.

 

Turns out, as we should have known, the church was farther than we thought. I was pooped.

 

Speaking of pooped…once there we were now early, so Janet and I found a park bench and sat for a moment. We hadn't been seated for 10 seconds when we heard this splat.  All on the front of Janet was a massive, and I mean massive, amount of bird poop. A pigeon seated directly above us had let loose. He had nothing left in him I'm sure.

 

I, naturally, giggled a bit, but did the best I could to help her clean up. Which really meant just handing her kleenex to wipe up with. It was everywhere. Gross.

 

Deciding that we had had enough of nature, we walked back to where our tour would begin. The wonderful Carlos was our tour guide. He had so much knowledge that it amazed me how he could answer just about any question about the basilica. He clearly had a passion for art history and loved his job. I love when we get lucky and get tour guides that I'll never forget.

 

La Sagrada Familia is the brain child of Antonio Gaudi. It started being built in 1882 and is still under construction. When we were there last year they said it would be done in 2021…now they were saying it is scheduled to be done for the 100 year celebration of Gaudi's death in 2026. I'll believe it when I see it. Gaudi realized that he'd not likely see the church finished - though I bet he meant living a natural life and not one ending tragically by being hit by a trolley.

 

The church is amazing. It sits in a none assuming neighborhood and is the symbol of Barcelona. The church is staggeringly beautiful. The Nativity façade - which is where we entered, looks a lot like melting sand to me. Carlos explained each scene to us and its significance. Then, just like last year, entering the church is jaw dropping.

 

Gaudi designed the inside to look like a forest, and it sure does. The gentle curves are all what you'd see in nature. There just aren't enough words to describe just how beautiful this place is.

 

After the church tour, we hopped in a cab back to la Rambla. No way in hell I was going to walk back. It was time to check in, so we found our room and took a little rest.

 

But before we did that we stopped off at a little tapas bar for some beer and a tapa or two. Luigi came out of hiding and had some beer too. The two bar tenders thought Luigi was funny and one even took a photo of him. We had a small burger tapa that was delicious, some yummy olives…and a huge glass of beer.

 

 

Feeling better, we walked down to our hotel.

 

Hotel Gaudi is where we stayed and it was quite the nice place. Just a couple yards off la Rambla and very centralized. In fact we commented a number of times just how perfect of a location it was. And we had a fantastic view of the Palau Guell - another Gaudi structure. The roof top had all sorts of fascinating arrow topped sculptures.

 

We then decided that we should go check out the rooftop terrace. Beautiful up there. We sat for a minute and just looked at the skyline. A waitress eventually came by and asked if we wanted any Sangria. Sure. Why not? So we drank the first of many pitchers of Sangria.

 

After a little rest, and well into the evening, because it turns out Spaniards eat really late, we walked down to a restaurant recommended by the hotel called 7 Portas. Once there they had an hour wait and we were just too hungry. On our way there, however, we had passed several restaurants. So we picked one called Sailor restaurant. I ordered chicken paella and Janet got adventurous and ordered Valencia Paella - which had chicken, rabbit and snails…though the waiter called them fish.

 

Both plates were delicious and we were glad, in a weird way, that the other restaurant was full.

 

Back to the hotel and we crashed. We'd been up for a very long time and we were pooped. We walked over 20,000 steps that day and even Janet -the energizer bunny - said we may have over did it.