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 :-)