Barcelona: Final Thoughts

I think what amazed me most of Barcelona is that unlike many other European cities, it’s not that old. The Barrio Gothic is, of course, many centuries old, but it’s only a small part of a large city. Most of the other buildings were built in the early 1900s; it’s almost like the city didn’t really come alive until Gaudi started designing its buildings and giving the city a shot in the arm. Overall, it’s a charming city in which I think I would gain excessive amounts of weight if I stayed any longer. Like Paris, you can walk into almost any restaurant and get a good meal… similarly, you can uncork any [cheap] bottle of wine and not be disappointed either.

Some other random pics:

--- Our apartment in Barcelona












---- The dome of the MNAC building

Day 6 in Barcelona: Barceloneta on our Last Day

With our trip coming to an end, on the last day we decided to do some more shopping in the morning then head out to Barceloneta. We were continually stumped by the recommended shoe stores and ended up buying jewelry and leather goods. We definitely saved Barceloneta for the best day, even if it was the last. Monday was by far the warmest day and it was wonderful to walk down by the water. (That copper-y looking building in the distance on the left is part of the Olympic stadium).

We started our time in Barceloneta by having a late lunch – very Barcelonian of us… we were learning. We went to la Mar Salada. We had saved our big paella meal for last and it was great! We shared soup, paella, a bottle of wine and 2 cortados (essentially macchiatos). We even made friends with the old men on their lunch break… all while the women they knew at the table next to us made fun of them for flirting with the young Americans (okay, so I don’t know exactly what the women said, but I could imagine).

After lunch, we walked off the paella on the beach. We even stuck our feet in the water – my educated guess is that it was about 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Chilly, but it felt good with the hot sun (which I later realized burnt me a little). After, we went to (new) W hotel on the water that’s meant to remind you of a sail on the ocean. Some Barcelonians don’t like it, but I think it looks nice against the horizon (check out the windsurfer on the left!)

We took a Teleforic back to a point closer to our apartment (pictures below). We walked the rest of the way back and found a shoe store just down the block from the apartment and we actually found shoes that we liked! This may not sound like an amazing feat, but it perfectly ended a great week in Spain. Since we had done the research, we wanted to see if we could find Café de l’Academie for dinner, since it was the only destination that had eluded us during our trip. Though we were able to find it, they were fully booked, so we went to another place that the book recommended, Taller de Tapas. We went with the basics – patatas bravas, croquettes, a lamb dish and chocolate sin for dessert.

Day 5 in Barcelona: a Lazy Day

The next morning we started off a bit later than normal had headed over to Park Ciudadela. It was yet another beautiful day to walk around so we weaved our way through the park, past Barcelona’s Arc de Trionf, the zoo, the greenhouse and the geology museum.


We hung around the park until after church got out and headed over to the Catedral de Santa Eulalia. This church is known for its lack of light and enclosed cloister. The 12 white geese housed in the cloister are supposed to represent the 12 forms of torture that Santa Eulaia survived. After the church, we intended to go to the Picasso museum, but decided against it when we saw the line – we should have known better, since it was free to enter at that time of day! Instead we went shopping in the Barrio Gothic and Born.

We finished off the day at Set Portes (7 doors) restaurant. This is a famous restaurant down by the water that specializes in fish dishes. Tia and I split and excellent cod dish, along with a Spanish sausage and white beans. We ended the meal with 5 assorted tartlets which were very yummy.

(I saw this sign on the side of the building on the way to the restaurant... I wondered if that's where they chase the bulls?)

Day 4 in Barcelona: Montserrat

The next morning, we got up early and headed out to Montserrat. Montserrat is accessible by train and is nearly an hour northwest of Barcelona. Montserrat is known for the basilica and monastery built in the mountain range in the town. The quickest way to get to the top is a Teleforic (cable car – funny, this is the only country that I’ve seen these!). Less than 10 minutes later we were up at the top in what seems to be its own little town on the top of a mountain.

We strolled around the town for a bit before going into the basilica since there were several church services going on in the morning, which may have been what led us to missing our train later. We did not expect to sit in a line to see the main event:

<---- Mary and baby Jesus

We got back on the Teleforic (see the picture, right) and to the bottom of the mountain just in time to see the hourly train leave without us. Fortunately, we were on a different train that got us back to Barcelona slightly earlier than we imagined, however, it squashed our plans to go to Barceloneta (the beach). If we had had more time in Barcelona, I would have liked to spend a whole day at Montserrat and did some hiking.

It's worth posting some random pictures of Montserrat - it was so beautiful!:

When we got back into the city, we relaxed and headed to dinner early at a local spot that a friend recommended – Bar Celta. We had the octopus, as recommended by our friend from NYC and the guy sitting at the bar to our left. The octopus was really good and served with olive oil and paprika. We also had patatas bravas and some fried Padron peppers (which I thought I would hate but really ended up liking). The guy sitting next to us recommended going to a jazz show of La Rambla, which we couldn’t find, so we ended up going to a Flamenco show instead. It was worth it, though a bit shorter than I would have liked.

Day 3 in Barcelona: Montjuic

The next morning, we intended to go to Montserrat for our day trip out of the city, however, a slow start made us rethink our plan. We decided to go to Montjuic park and castle instead. Montjuic is a mountain and once you get to the top, you overlook the port and beaches of Barcelona. While you can take the “Teleforic” (cable car, to the rest of us) to the top, we chose to walk the windy streets up to the top. The castle at the top of the mountain is more like a fort that I think at one point imprisoned a Spanish president for awhile. It’s free to climb to the top and the view was amazing:

Becoming lazy as the day wore on, we took the bus back down the mountain and headed out to lunch before our afternoon at the MNAC museum. We ate at Quimet Quimet which was at the southern end of the Rival. One word: spectacular. This was one of the other favorite meals on the trip. This little tapas bar was overflowing with patrons when we arrived, but we were able to squeeze in to stand at the bar (there actually isn’t any seating in the place at all). The owners / chefs stand behind the bar and make fresh Canapes and Mixed plates overflowing with Barcelona-goodness. The chef was SUPER nice, despite that we had no idea how to order what we wanted. He asked us what we liked (fish, cheese, meat, etc) and started preparing. Tia and I each had 2 canapes (one of mine had rillette, carmelized onions and reduced balsamic; the other had an amazing cheese with tomatoes, tapenade and caviar, drizzled with olive oil) and shared a mixed plate of Iberian ham, mushrooms, duck (we think), chestnuts (somehow sweetened and awesome!) and foie gras (is it bad that I don’t feel at all bad about force-feeding ducks then eating their livers because they taste so good? Eh well, I can deal with the guilt.).

After lunch, we rolled ourselves over to the MNAC (Museo National Arts de Catalunya). The MNAC’s collections are housed in a beautiful 20^th century castle built at [almost] the base of Montjuic. We were fairly exhausted and decided to stick with the Renaissance and Modern Art sections of the museum. Our main intention was to stay until 7:00pm when the Magic Fountain begins. Several days a week, Barcelonians and tourists alike assemble in front of the MNAC to watch the fountain, whose jets are synchronized with both lights and music. Friday’s “performance” was the Spanish version of classic Disney musicals: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, and the Lion King.

After the fountain, we decided to eat closer to home at a place called La Flauta, which is named after the long, skinny rolls that the Barcelonians use to make sandwiches. Aside from the oil that the waiters spilled on my leather jacket, the meal was pretty good. Tia got the local potato/onion omelette-like dish (tortilla de patatas?) which she let me have a bite of :-)

Day 2 in Barcelona: the Day of Gaudi

We started Thursday bright and early by heading out to the Sagrada Familia – Gaudi’s STILL unfinished church. Gaudi was a very religious man who wanted to build a church that evoked the feeling that you were in a forest streaming with light. Mind you, this project started in the late 1800s and Gaudi only saw about 1/8 (that’s my estimation anyway) of it finished by the time he died in 1926. Today, you can walk around the inside which Gaudi would be proud to see does in fact look like a forest. Due to its decades of construction, it does tend to look different from each side – front, back, inside and outside. Gaudi wanted this church to have streams of light and I must say, he succeeded! Many of the other churches that we saw later in our trip were very dark and cavernous, but not Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia!

Next, we moved onto Park Guell to check out the view and Gaudi’s home before he died. Needless to say, this was our first experience lost in Barcelona (please note that I said the first… definitely not the last!). Eventually, we weaved our way up the hill and found and entrance to the park. The park is a mix of evergreen and palm trees, with bits of Gaudi mixed in.

After the park, we headed to the History of the City Museum. Located in the Barrio Gotico, the museum rests upon the former city of Barcino circa 15 BC. The museum weaves you underground and explains the layout of the old city, specifically focusing on the laundry, wine making and church sections of the old city. After the museum, we had our first glass of sangria at a local tapas bar.

We decided to head back to Barrio Gotico for dinner and proceeded to get lost for the second time on our trip. Well, we weren’t exactly lost… we just couldn’t find the restaurant based on the map from Tia’s Fodor’s travel book.

Unable to let it go that we could not find the Café de l’Academie, we searched the internet and other travel guides to see where we erred. I’m happy to write that we are not stupid – the Fodor’s map sucked! After meandering around the Barrio Gothic for at least 30 minutes, we gave into our hunger and went to the other only place that we had found during our exhaustive search – a restaurant called Pla. While this was not the cheapest meal we ate, it was definitely one of the best. I had a fantastic plate of pork with some kind of amazing sauce that made up for all of the walking that we had done before dinner.

Day 1 in Barcelona: The Arrival

We arrived to a sunny day in Barcelona on March 23^rd after a relaxed red-eye flight. After fighting a bit with the ATMs in the airport upon arrival, we found the Aerobus to take us into Barcelona. The Aerobus dropped us right in the Placa Catalunya, which was a short 2 minute walk from the apartment that we rented. Knowing that we would be tired, we decided to take a short walk down La Rambla to begin our week in the city. Since I really hadn’t planned anything for this trip or even bothered to read about Barcelona (thank God Tia did!) I didn’t even know they spoke another version of Spanish – Catalunyan. I figured this out when I got scolded by a shop owner for not speaking Catalunyan; after professing my my apologies, I think she realized that I wasn’t even Spanish and was willing to sell me one of the bracelets in her shop. An odd experience on our first day in a new city, but I was willing to believe that it was a fluke thing and this particular shop owner was simply strange. Thankfully, I was proved right and no one ever gave us a hard time about not knowing the language.

We also stopped by Liceu, which is one of the two main performance centers. The Liceu is the older of the two, but since it was destroyed by two fires in the last 200 years, it’s been remodeled several times. One of the benefits of these remodelings is that it is now fully up-to-date with TV screens for those with bad seats or who need translations.

Next on our tour of La Rambla, we saw the first of the many Gaudi creations – Casa Mila, which was built for the Mila family, finished in 1910. My first reaction to the Gaudi “look” is that I feel a little like Hansel and Gretel and this is looking like a stone-colored gingerbread house! Gaudi’s creations are whimsical, colorful and a little cartoon-like. I think it’s the organic lines of the buildings that make them so attractive to the eye – I found myself often wondering, “how did he do that?” or “how long did that take to build?” While we didn’t pay to go to the roof, there was a free art exhibit and at least we got to tour the inside!

On our walk back to the apartment, we stopped to pick up some food from the Boqueria. This is one of Barcelona’s famous markets. There is a maze of fruit, meat and spice stands equivalent to a square block in NYC. We wasted no time and picked up some fresh goat cheese, Iberian ham, bread, and fruit to have for our breakfasts.

The meals on our first day were, of course, excellent. First, we stopped at Café Vienna for a flauta. We learned quickly that the small size is VERY small. We had the stereotypical Iberian ham flauta and a Damm beer. For dinner, we went to Tapas 24 where we had our first taste of Barcelona’s famous tomato bread. Tia and I both wondered why we had never made this before! It’s simply toasted bread, wiped with a ripe tomato, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. So simple! We ordered some random tapas, including croquettes, chicken wings with an amazing kimchiri sauce, some sort of fish canape; we topped it off with Barcelona’s version of crème brulee – Crema Catalunya.