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When we arrived in Barcelona, we took our sleepy and jet-lagged selves out for a walk to try to stay awake and get on the time zone. But we quickly found that we were too loopy to safely navigate the bikes, buses, and traffic, so we found a place to park ourselves and have a bite and a drink. Ahh, our first tapas in Spain!! We wandered into Enrique Tomas and got the olives, the croquettes, the jamon, some wine. It was fine, but only later did we realize that this is a chain all over the place and by comparison, it's just fair.
| Driving from the airport we passed Las Arenas de Barcelona, a former bullfighting arena converted to shopping mall. There is no bull fighting now in Catalunya. |
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We safely made our way back to the hotel. We were staying at the Indigo Placa Catalunya. I decided to take a swim, as it was still quite warm there and I thought (correctly!) that it would feel refreshing and help me stay awake until the proper bedtime.
We booked this hotel for the location, as it is walking distance to so many sights and restaurants. When we arrived, the Louis Vuitton Cup (part of America's Cup) sailing races were finishing, and many places were booked and prices were fairly high. We stayed at this hotel again on our way out of Spain as well and it was less expensive on the return stay, plus we were upgraded to a room with a balcony and a seating area with a couch, thanks to the IHG rewards program.
Overall, the rooms we had were nice and were bigger than the tiny rooms I had expected in Europe (this was true pretty much everywhere we went). However, the lobby had a bit of an odor (upon our return, I realized that a lot of Barcelona has that aroma - it's warm and humid, even in the end of October). There had been hard rain and the pool area was dirty from overflowing planting containers, and there were a lot of mosquitos. They have a gym, but it had not much more than cardio equipment and was honestly not the cleanest - again, I think in part from the humidity, but still it seemed a bit neglected. The staff were great though - very friendly and helpful at the front desk and at the hotel bar.
Being so tired but trying to remain awake, we decided to hang out in the hotel bar where we could safely stumble back to our room. The bartender was Sylvia, from Colombia, and as we were the only people there, she was happy to let us practice our Spanish and she her English. The next evening, when we stopped in to say hi to her, the place was full from a speed-dating event so we had fun people-watching.
| Barcelona, and pretty much everywhere we went, is full of fountains that people use for drinking, for their pets, or for cleaning. We saw a lady filling mop buckets at this one while we were waiting for the tour group to assemble. It was very common to see shopkeepers cleaning the sidewalks in from of their stores, and most everywhere we went was very clean. The availability of water and the tidiness are nice customs and culture. |
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A few years back, we had visited some friends in Turkey and they suggested we book a guide for 2 days. In Istanbul this was very affordable. This was great advice, because we got to see all the sights while avoiding lines - not just because of skip-the-line tickets, but because he knew the best times of days to visit each place.
Travel Tip: When traveling across time zones, book a tour for your first-day activity. Hop-on/hop-off tours are good to get the lay of the land. Some are good for 24 or 48 hours so can serve as your transportation, and they offer discounted tickets to many attractions.
Taking tours on the first couple days gets you up and outside, helping adjust to local time. Another benefit, we found, is that the guide can act as your brain while you might still be tired and fuzzy from jetlag. They will keep you safe and steered in the right direction so you can just relax and enjoy. So of course in planning this trip, we booked some group tours for the first couple days.
Our first tour was a walking tour ending with a visit to Montjuic. The guide was from Spain, I believe, but not from Barcelona. The tour met off Las Ramblas -- this is plural because it is really a series of ramblas, wide pedestrian streets with shops and restaurants. I read that originally this area was a seasonal riverbed (and sewer) but in the 15th century those were moved, undergrounded I suppose, and the resulting streets were used as markets for various goods. We passed the Boqueria Market, the Gran Teatre del Liceu, and some old and diverse neighborhoods. We saw Bar Marsella, opened in 1820 and retaining its old decor. It was frequented by Dali, Picasso, and Hemingway, but unfortunately was closed the morning when we walked past.
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Next we took the cable car up to Montjuíc and learned some of the history, which gives some understanding today of Catalunya and other autonomous regions of Spain. Barcelona was important to Mediterranean trade. Montjuíc served as a a lookout, fort, and prison for various regimes and rulers since the 11th century, at least through the Spanish Civil War. The tour description indicates that it includes a trip into the dungeons, but we did not see them (I'm fine with that). We only saw the fort but there are also some sports complexes built on the hill. Sadly, the Magic Fountain was not running due to drought conditions - I expect it's similar to the Bellagio in Las Vegas and I was really looking foward to seeing it because I'm a sucker for such things. Overall, I would say that the tour was fun and informative and probably a decent value for the cost.
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From where the tour ended, we navigated our way to lunch. Ah, Benzina was so nice. We sat outside in a broad pedestrian alley, at the end of which was a school where we could hear kids playing outside. Upscale food but non-fussy, welcoming service. We shared the calamari (we had a lot of this on this trip, and this one was quite good), then I had the "linguine aglio, olio, peperoncino, lobster, avocado, cardamom oil" and my husband had "cavatelli with lamb ragout, salva cremasco cheese, grapefruit zest" I think. All top-notch. Would recommend this place for sure.
Travel Tip: Google Fi cell service "just works" in lots of countries. Having reliable cell and data coverage is a game changer for travel. No pre-planning, just navigate with your phone. And we didn't have to spend time getting local sim cards or pay-as-you-go plans.
After lunch we wandered down to the waterfront to check out the America's Cup activity - it was wrapping up but there were still some performances ongoing. We walked through the MareMagnum shopping area. We visited the Santa Monica museum which was ... interesting. It was very activist, very thought-provoking. It is probably more meaningful to local people who have more context for some of messages. But it was free and in a cool old building and we wanted to see non-tourist stuff too, so glad we went. We also wandered by a cool park, the Plaça de la Villa de Madrid that had an excavation in the middle revealing ancient Roman tombs.
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We hoofed it back to our hotel and surprisingly did not immediately collapse. The weather was still nice and we spotted a rooftop bar near the hotel so we headed over. It was the Rooftop Garden of the Palace hotel, much fancier than where we were staying. Honestly I don't remember what we ate, but I think it was just some tapas that were fine but not amazing.
Observation: Overall people dress better than we do here in the US. When you go out, wear shirts with collars and even consider a button-down or jacket. We did see people in t-shirts in restaurants, but it was less common.
I also booked a tour for day 2, to visit Parque Güell and the famous Sagrada Familia. We got off to a late start so we grabbed a cab to the tour office. We were glad we did because while it didn't look like too long a walk on the map, it turned quite steep. From the meeting point, we walked a few steep blocks up to the park, which we learned had been an attempt by the architect Gaudí to create a housing subdivision but it was too far from the city, in those days before cars, and no one came to build their house there. The park has pathways and gardens and some interesting buildings and lovely tile work. The park is full of noisy parakeets. Being from the US, I found them preferable to city pigeons but I am sure if I lived there they would soon become more annoying than crows. I liked the visit to the park but overall I would not recommend to take a tour here. It was too crowded and rushed. It would be better done on your own pace, maybe early or later in the day and with an audio guide or some notes. You should get tickets in advance.
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The tour took us by bus to part two, the Sagrada Familia. You might feel this building is so iconic that you can see all you need to see from outside and from photos online, but do not skip this tour. Our guide, who had seemed unenthusiastic at Parque Güell, pointed out so many interesting details here and it really was a treat. The style inside is so different from the outside - open and airy with a surprisingly modern feel. Gaudí was quite religious and also loved nature and was a big math geek, and you can see evidence throughout. Go in the morning or afternoon, when the sun will be at an angle, and bask in the light streaming through the stained glass. The morning sun colors are cool and the evening colors are warm; the contrast makes an amazing effect.
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Not growing up in church myself but touring cathedrals, I had the realization that the artwork - paintings, sculptures, stained glass - told the Christian story and history to a population that generally could not read. It gave them tangible means to remember, teach, and reflect. The artistry of the sculptures surrounding the exterior of the Sagrada Familia utilize different styles to evoke more emotion: "Nativity's radiant joy, Passion's stark truths, and Glory's celestial promise." Moreover, the construction has been ongoing for 140 years and features the work of many artists in various architectural styles. I think for this reason some people consider the building itself to be ugly, but I think it's really cool.
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After the tour, we spent time in the museum that is beneath the church. It has cool multimedia displays about how Gaudí developed some of the designs and shows his evolution from Gothic styled cathedrals with their heavy buttressing to a design eliminating the buttresses to enable all the glass in the walls. There is also an engineering workshop you can peer into - apparently one reason that the construction continues today is that we didn't yet have the construction technology to actually build some of Gaudí's designs and there is a fair amount of modeling still needed to complete it.
Observation: I would not recommend this tour as it was packaged. While we had one guide, it turned out that the two visits were provided by two different companies so we had to do the ticket check-in at both of them. I am not sure how to be able to tell from tour descriptions how to avoid that in the future.
| Fresh mushroom dish from Pur (photo copied from their website). | 
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Dinner that evening was at Pur, a restaurant that uses few flavors in each dish to highlight the the main ingredient and appealed to me after some overly complicated fine dining experiences. You will think I'm crazy but my favorite dish might have been the grilled lettuce hearts. We also had tomato salad with stracciatella, figs and pine nuts; an assortment of in-season mushrooms; and grilled lamb ribs and chops. Everything was delicious, there is an open kitchen which gives a cool atmosphere, and the service was excellent... except: when perusing the wine list and getting a suggestion from the somme, my husband gave 3 examples within a certain price range that he was considering. The somme suggested a local wine and we accepted, only to find when the bill arrived that it was more than double the example range. So lesson learned - I guess you have to take that awkward moment to find the suggestion in the price list if you want to avoid that sort of surprise.
In the morning, mostly recovered from jetlag, we headed back to the airport for a flight to Porto. Our plan for fitting in everything we wanted to do, was fly in and out of Barcelona, but then fly to Porto and pick up a car. This enabled us to go places we would not have been able to get to by train but it also proved problematic at times. We had to be careful to book hotels that had parking. This generally was not a problem, but we were really surprised to learn that some Spanish cities have driving and parking restrictions based on cars' emissions (electric vs. hybrid vs. standard fuel vs. deisel). Of course our car we picked up in Portugal was not registered even though it qualified.
In theory, we were saving money by traveling via Barcelona, and saving time by flying to Porto instead of driving. But it was so expensive to pick up in one country and drop in another. So in retrospect, on the next trip I think we would plan to train between cities and rent and return cars locally as needed.
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