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Here are some Barcelona photos. The gallery will open in a new window, there you will see all the thumbnails, click on any of them to see a bigger version, or you can see a slideshow. Sorry about the advertisements, just ignore them (hey, free webspace is free webspace).
Thankfully, not the usual crack-of-dawn departure. Our flight leaves Edinburgh at 11:10am so we have time for a proper breakfast and to finish packing before driving to the off-airport car park. Very bumpy landing at Gatwick where we wait for about an hour before our flight to Barca. Why is it always that the person in front of Mal is the only person on the flight who insists on laying their seat back as far as possible?
At Barca aitport we collected out luggage and trekked round to the RENFE station only to find that trains are on strike. Back to the terminal and into the long queue for the bus into town. In the centre of town we walked down what we thought was "La Rambla" - a narrow twisted lane with old buildings either side, turned out that this was just some little laneway. It led to our hotel anyway, nice place, nice room, the only bad news is that we've only booked for the first three nights and they are full later in the week. We're planning to pop out of town to Montserrat for a couple of nights during the week.
After a shower and a browse through our new guide book we headed out and back to Place Catalunya, where our bus had stopped, to visit the tourist office and see about hotels room for later in the week, and how best to get to Montserrat. Seems there are very few rooms available at all later in the week!
Wandered back toward our hotel "San Agustin" looking for eats on the way. As it got darker we decided on a trendy looking place "Silenus" that got a good mention in our guide book. Morag had a nice salad of dried tomatoes, riccota and pine-nuts, followed by a salmon "pie" (more like a course mousse, no pastry), Mal had "carpaccio" (raw?) beef slices in herbs & oil and profiteroles for dessert.
Back to the hotel to find it's a comfy bed.
We've really not scored well with time changes, as well as losing an hour yesterday with the change from UK time to Europe time, we also lost an hour with the start of "summertime" - so we didn't get out for brekky until 10am. Luckily brekky is on until 11am.
Managed to "start the day" about 11:30 and headed out across the real "La Ramblas" - a broad tree-lined avenue. Just in time to catch the start of the Barcelone to Sitges vintage car rally rumbling through. Most of the drivers and passengers were dressed in the appropriate fashions to go with their cars, vans, fire-engines - they had the lot. Once they had passed we headed north into the medieval streets of the La Ribera area.
Lots of people out for Sunday strolls and lots of tourists. We just wandered around and ended up down at the port - past the huge marina and into the port area of Barceloneta. Had a tapas lunch at "Can Ramonet", according to our guide-book the oldest building in Barca. Nice place - sat at stools with old wine barrels for tables, we should have stayed for an extra drink as just as we were leaving it started to bucket down and continued to do so as we sprinted to the nearest Metro station. Still raining when we emerged at the other end and sprinted to the hotel.
Just had to have a siesta - till 5:30pm! then up & out again - wandered the port-end of La Rambla, checking out the craft stalls as we went, and then out to the new harbour development and back again to Barceloneta to hunt for an eatery. Wandered thru lots of the back streets with no luck - lots of local bars but not with substantial menus - then found "Al Passatore" en route back toward the hotel. Had a fab couple of pizzas - great wee restaurant with proper stone pizza oven, and very very busy. Walked home by 10pm. Plan for tomorrow is to try again to book a hotel for later in the week, book a place at Montserrat, and Sagrada Familia.
So we were up by 10am and up to the info. office and phoned Montserrat for a room for Tues & Wed nights - nae bother. & then set off on our "tour of the Modernistas". Lots of zig-zagging from Placa Catalunya to see lots of facades of Modernista buildings - Gaudi and the likes, lots of fantastic enclosed balconies, columns and other decorations - all thru Eixample and over Diagonal to Sagrada Familia.
Sagrade Familia is a monstrous creation, and still going strong - building started in 1883, and nowhere near finished. The more recent additions don't really seem to fit that well with Gaudi's stuff. Can't help wondering whether it will be finished before the original bits start to fall down?
Had a late lunch (menu del dia) at 2pm at a local cafe after "doing the Sagrada", then trekked home via another of Gaudi's creations, for a well-earned siesta, and caught up on the Oscar winners on TV. We planned for dinner at one of two local restaurants from the guide book, then set out for a pre-dinner wander around the back streets behind our hotel before arriving at "Rest. Xironde Orense" where we had a couple of fino sherrys at the bar with the locals, then out the back to the 15-seater room and had a selection of tapas - calamares, anchovies, pinchos (skewers), tortilla, roasted pimientos y chorizo, and vino for 3700 pesetas.
it's a rainy night so we're hoping that keeps the local revelers indoors instead of out-and-about waking us up thru the night.
Alarm at 8ish and breakfasted by 9;30...then off to the market to get some picnic supplies for today & we're off to Montserrat for 2 nights. Market was a typical European bustling fresh-produce market, fish stalls doing great business, and one stall that had more (chicken) eggs than you've ever seen in one place before. We bought some cheese rolls and some chorizo to add to them, then back to the hotel - checked out by 11am - tube to Placa Espanya to get the 11:30 train to Montserrat (2900 pesetas each for train and cable-car). The train journey was fairly ordinary - just through the 'burbs, until we got near Montserrat where suddenly there was a huge outcrop of rock. Swapped from the train to the cable-car and swept up the hillside.
Into Montserrat by 1-ish and checked into the hotel. Place is throbbing with tourists and school-kids on a day out. We had our picnic pieces on a seat overlooking the main square and the view back down to the plains around Montserrat. Then it started to rain, then snow. Decided it would be a good idea to have a siesta - by the time we'd had a nap then nice hot baths the snow was falling quite thickly and a few inches had settled on the grass and gardens.
Morag had noticed in the local literature that there was a choir singing in the Basilica at 7:10pm each day, so we headed out for that - marble floors can be pretty slippery when wet and snowy. managed to make it safely to the basilica for some fabulous singing. Then back to the hotel (about 200 yards) for evening sherry before our dinner (included in the room rate). The restaurant was not a hub of activity. The waitresses were rushing the meals out to the 6 occupied tables in an effort to get us all back out the door asap! The meal wasn't spectacular - would have cost 2475 pesetas each if we weren't staying there, plus vino 1700 ptas and water 200 ptas. We had salad, grilled veg, lamb chops followed by ice-cream and strawbs. We were out by 9:20 pm and the snow had stopped - but the mist had set in.
Well it was certainly quiet last night - woken by the bells at 7:20. Glorious sunshine outside when we got up, but by the time we'd had out buffet breakfast the mist had come back in and we couldn't see too far at all. This is a bit of a pain as our main reason for visiting here is to do a bit of walking. Hung about in the room for a while until the mist started to clear a bit and headed out to do one of the easy trails that heads around the hill without going any higher up into the mist. Turned out to be a bit of a pilgrimage trail, lots of little tiles shrines to various saints and people who'd been involved in music at the basilica.
A very easy walk but freezing, and quite a lot of snow on the path. beautiful views down on the plains, where the sun was shining strongly. Still misty up on the hill but. Decided to head up there anyway and hope the mist cleared, so caught the funicular up to the top of the hill about half-11ish (minus the camera which had decided its batteries were dead). It's a very steep slope so a good idea to ride up and walk down. Sun starting to shine quite well by the time we got to the top (65 degrees F).
The funicular stops at the St. Joan station and we decided on the longest walk - to St. Jeroni. This took us up along a ridge - the paths were well marked and in good condition so no problems getting to the summit at St. Jeroni, there were only a few other walkers on the path. The sun was shining quite strongly now - gloves in the morning and sun-block in the afternoon (except we'd neglected to bring any sunblock!) - the only problem with this was that with the snow melting you got the occasional dollop of snow on the top of the head from walking through the trees. Ate our apples at the little shrine at St. Jeroni and then decided not to go straight back down but to walk back to St. Joan and then take another path on the other side of the hill that led back down to the town, via Placa de Sant Miguel.
On the way back to St. Joan we came across some climbers standing on the path watching the first of their group ascend what seemed to us to be a sheer rock face. I suppose it was actually a faily easy climb, as these things go, as it was the kind of rock face with lots of indentations - not a smooth face. They were English and didn't seem to appreciate it when Morag told them they were mad.
Our first path had taken us through some lovely woods, but this path was on the other side of the mountain and was quite barren. With the sun shining quite brightly we were down to our t-shirts on the way home. Just enough energy when we arrived in town to go to the pastry shop for a treat. Then back to the room about 5-ish for hot baths and a pastry pig-out.
Out again in time for the choir singing at 7:20 and then for dinner - another quiet evening with the ever-so-unhelpful waitresses. We dined on chicken broth, salad and grilled monkfish.
Once again those 7:20am bells got us awake, by now the snow was all but gone, just a few wee bits in shady spots. Chatted at breakfast with an English bloke who is just starting a walk "from sea to sea" with his backpack and tent! He'll be leaving from Montserrat today and heading west toward the Atlantic. He sounded to be from Yorkshire way, and said he had a month to spare and just decided on the spur of the moment to get up and go.
We were up and out of the hotel, posting postcards & knocking on the door at the cable-car at 10:20 to catch the 10:36 train back to Barca. Straight to the tourist office to look for a room, and it wasn't looking good as there are very few rooms available and they only book for one night at a tims, except, they just happen to know of one hotel that has a room for 3 nights straight. It's a 4* and a lot more expensive than we normally go for, but we decided to go for it as we didn't want to be packing up every day and trudging back here to try to find another room for the night.
The hotel is the St. Moritz at 22000 pesetas for the first night then 18900 for each subsequent night - breakfast not included. An average of £82 per night but better than nothing. The hotel is just near the info. office so we went straight there and dumped our bags. Nice enough room, looking out over an internal atrium, so no real fresh air. The room is actually not as nice as the cheaper one at the San Agustin, I suppose we're paying for the expensive fabric style wallpaper and the exercise bike in the room (just what we need!).
Headed out again - in shopping mode, up Passeig gracia to Diagonal, then long Diagonal sussing out the windows of the designer stores. After a couple of hours of this we headed home for siestas and baths. For tonight's dinner we aim to go to Taverna La Parra with it's wood-fired grill and promises (in the guide book) of hefty portions of lamb, rabbit, pok, beef and spare ribs served on wooden slabs with fresh "all i oli" (garlic mayo). it's about 2k away from the hotel but we decided it would be a good idea to walk there before pigging-out, not many people there so we easily got a table at 8:45 (just as it opened) and perused the menus (call us wimps if you like, but we immediately ruled out the roast horse!)
Bit difficult to really come to grips with the menu as it was only in Catalan or Spanish, and the waiters speak little English, but Morag finally decided on a starter of calcots ("cal-chots", local vegetable looking a bit like huge spring onions, only available Nov-March, chargrilled and served with a spicy sauce), by the time the waiter had shown Morag how to peel off the outer leaves (still covered in dirt) and dunk the juicy insides in the sauce (follwoed by the lady at the next table who had a better method), Mal was well into his starer of "local sausage", a huge wooden platter slices of about 15 different types of local sausage (mmmm, mmm). All this took a long time and we'd finished our first bottle of local vino tinto, and ordered a flask of the house red. This helped us wash down the main courses of lamb chops (Mal) and veal spare ribs (Morag), needless to say each was very much a "hefty" serving. Nearly forgot, this feast was started with another local speciality, toasted bread with plum tomatoes and garlic. Rub the garlic into the toasty bread, then rub on the tomatoe, then sprinkle with olive oil. Delish!
Staggered out of this place about 11;30pm absolutely stuffed, rolled into a tube train and then staggered to the hotel, only to be woken at 4am by some drunken English lad who had arrived back at the hotel to find his girlfriend was already asleep or just refused to open the door.
Feel a bit delicate this morning! Lucky for us it's absolutely bucketing down outside so no pressure to get up and about. The hotel does do breakfast, but at 2500 pesetas each we're not partaking. Finally rolled out of the room about 12 noon, still raining a bit so down to the local "El Corte Ingles", Spain's favourite department stores, this one has a top floor restaurant/cafe. Gulped down lots of cafe, orange juice, and a small helping of tortilla, and checked-out the views over the town.
So far we hadn't done any museums or galleries, so we decided on the maritime museum down near the harbour. Good museum but nowhere at all to sit when going round the exhibits. Some of the exhibits were quite hands-on, like the "ship in the storm" which bumped up and down with the waves - lucky we'd got over our "delicateness" by then!
Wandered back to the hotel via La Ramblas and stopped at Il Corte Ingles to see if we could get batteries for the camera. Success, in fact so cheap we bought an extra set. Started on our mid-afternoon siesta but got woken up by some foreign lads who were in 3 separate rooms and decided it would be a good idea to yell at each other across the atrium. We in turn, opened our curtains and yelled at them.
Tonight's feast was back down at Bareclonita, at Restaraunt ConRos, where we had salad, calamares, and paella (just has to have paella sometime on this trip), plus the obligatory tostada with garlic and tomatoe. Mal was tempted by the wee chocolate cups with truffle filling, Morag knows how yummy they were cos she pinched a couple.
Felt 100% on yesterday, the thankfully those foreign lads didn't yell at each other in the middle of the night. Lovely sunny day which is good as we've planned to visit Park Guell, which is packed full of Gaudi style decorations. Breakfasted at a local cafe on juice, coffee and cheese tostadas, in amongst the locals smoking and drinking beer. Jumped on a local bus up the long hill ot Park Guell and wandered around for a few hours amongst the Gaudi creations. Lots of other people with the same idea. A good park, well worth visiting.
Caught a bus back into town and stopped at a fast-food "pan" outlet for a "patata tortilla pan" (potato omelette sarny). Wandered along to another park that promised interesting sculptures but this one was a big dissapointment. Decided by now that it was time to head back for our siesta, via El Cortes Inglis to stock up on vital supplies, ie. Kahlua, Dom Benedictine, and goodies that are difficult to find in Edinburgh - cans of baby octopus.
Tonight's feeding frenzy is to be a tapas crawl and Morag has worked out the optimum route for sampling tapas.
1. Cran Bodega. Started with a glass of Cava each (local sparkling wine) to round of our stay in Barca, nibbled on some anchovies, sausage with butter beans, calamares and some vino tinto. A nice wee bar.
2. Mas I Mas. An upmarket bar with quite a few Brits in it (from Liverpool, very cheap flights available from Liverpool to Barca). Not a lot of food on offer though, just had a couple of vinos and some tortilla.
3. El Roble. best of the bunch, very busy local bar with loads of different tapas and friendly family behind the bar. Forced down a few vinos and some fishy empanidas (pastries) and some artichokes.
After a really good night's sleep we were out for breakfast at "Fresh and Ready", ham & cheese toasties and juice and coffee. Checked out of the hotel and caught the bus back to the airport, only to find that during the week they'd changed the airport all around and we had to go outside and walk down to the next terminal to check-in. Once we'd checked in and were inside the building we then had to walk all the way back to where we'd started from.
Flight to London was jam-packed, but the connecting flight from London to Edinburgh was nearly empty. there's rugby on in Edinburgh so the planes heading north are empty and will be packed on the way back. Big cheer when the pilot announced that Scotland had beat England in the rugby.
Returned to Edinburgh to howling wind, rain and sleet. Got back home about 6pm and got the central heating on and washing machine working straight away.
PS. When we were in Montserrat, what we didn;t know at the time and were told later, was that at the back of the basilica there's a wee chapel where ill-people come for healing. You can light candles as offerings, and if you have a problem with your leg you can find a leg shaped candle to light. If you have a liver problem you can find a liver shaped candle to light. Deeply weird! Can;t believe we missed it. We'll just have to go back!
The End