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Published: June 19th 2010
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Thanks to Woody Allen’s latest movie: ‘Vicky. Christina. Barcelona.’ for the inspiration for the title for this blog. We happened to watch this while falling asleep over two nights.
We checked into Hotel Soho which is in the Eixample district. It is near the University of Barcelona and a trendy neighborhood. The hotel is very trendy and had a window onto the Gran Via. It was a 10 minute walk to Las Ramblas. The bathroom had an electronic shade between the shower and the room. The lights had settings such as “On”, “Off”, “Hot”, and “Cool”. There was also a pool on the roofdeck that we never used.
The first item on our schedule was laundry. We filled the tub with a load and washed by hand. We used our travel clothesline, and Chris used the hangers for his shirts. It took 2 days to dry but we will have clean clothes for Venice.
We left the hotel for a stroll down Las Ramblas: the #1 place for tourists to get pickpocketed. We were ever vigilant and Gigi clutched her bag tightly. All down Las Ramblas, there were performers and men dressed
as statues. A popular one we saw often were men dressed as dragons with immense wings. We also saw another headless man as well as a chef who was filled with paella. Also unavoidable were men from India/Pakistan selling noisemakers that you put in your mouth and it makes you sound like a bird/chipmunk. We heard these throughout our trip from many tourists’ children. We decided right there that we would never buy that for our children (yeah, right…until they nag us incessantly like Chris did to his parents…) A later nighttime walk down Las Ramblas would unveil another trade for the Indian men as we were frequently offered “Smoke…”
Halfway down Las Ramblas we stopped in La Boqueria St. Josef. It is an outdoor market where you can buy fruit, fish, nuts, and other foods. They also had some tapas bars including a famous one: Pinotxio (from the Catalan for Pinnochio). We would end up buying some fruit and a “media kilo” of mixed nuts (Chris forgetting that a Kilo is 2.8 lbs., so a media Kilo is 1.4 lbs.) Guess we’ll be snacking on nuts for the rest of our trip.
We found a
lunch place off Las Ramblas where there was a huge spread of “Pinxtos” or open faced sandwiches. Each had a toothpick in it, and at the end of the meal, the man behind the counter simply counted the toothpicks to see what was eaten. We enjoyed a vino blanco, a cana de cerveca, and a cidre as we put down 16 toothpicks at 1.80 Euro apiece.
At the bottom of Las Ramblas, we took the elevator to the top of the Columbus Monument for some good views of the city, then we stopped briefly in the Marina Mega Mall.
We made our way to the old part of the city, the Barri Gotic to see some of the older architecture and meandered through an antiques market. We then made our way to the Picasso museum to see lots of Picasso’s earliest works from the age of 13-19, as well as the unfinished piece he was working on when he died.
The next morning we had reservations for La Sagrada Familia, Antonio Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral. When we arrived, we skipped the line of 2-300 people and went to pick up our tickets from the information
desk. Don’t know why more people didn’t do this…
We took the elevator to the top of one of the spires for some more great views, then took the audio tour to see the rest of the modern cathedral. It began in 1883, and Gaudi died in 1926. He left models for the workers to finish the cathedral, and it will be finished in 2030, just in time for us to return.
After taking gigabytes of video and pictures, we took the metro to La Barcelonetta for lunch on the beach. Chris had a goat cheese salad and paella, and Gigi enjoyed fried baby squid and a Spanish pasta called “Fideuo”. We saw many Spaniards wearing their national soccer team jerseys, and a man who colored his Mohawk to match the Spanish flag. Unfortunately, in a major upset, Spain lost the Switzerland. Switzerland’s team isn’t supposed to be very good or bad, but always neutral. Get it? Switzerland? Neutral? Before leaving the beach, we walked along the boardwalk and got a sample of Barcelona beach sand to add to our collection.
That night on a recommendation from our guidebooks, we went to tapas at
Cerveceria Catalan and enjoyed a roasted red pepper filled with cod, and the greatest sandwich ever created: bacon, cheese, and dates. It was like a bacon wrapped date sandwich. We enjoyed a traditional postre of Crème Catalan.
The next morning we slept in for the first time on our trip. In turn, we barely made it to the Catedral before they closed it for worship. We saw the tomb of St. Euthalia or something. We were happy to only stay 20 minutes because we are being Cathedraled out. It was time for lunch, and again we returned to the little “sandwich on a stick” place: Café Itaxi. Only 12 toothpicks this time. Gigi wants to recreate these when we get home.
Off on the Metro to Parc Guell. At this park, all the houses and benches are designed by Antoni Gaudi, the guy who designed La Sagrada Familia. There were giant gingerbread houses and arched stone walkways. We sat and enjoyed the view of Barcelona and ate some fruit from the market. There were lots of performers, as well as knockoff sunglass salesmen and other craftspeople. The walk was 1300 meters uphill to get there, so the walk
down was much more refreshing.
To end the day we took the funicular up to the top of Montjiuic. From the top of the funicular, we took the cable car up to the castle. From the castle top we could see Royal Caribbean’s Adventure of the Seas leaving port. We could even hear the music from the band on the ship. (We had sailed AOS from Puerto Rico a couple years ago.) For some reason the whole castle smelled like bad pasta…maybe a foreshadowing for Venice tomorrow?
After the castle, we took the cable car back down and walked to the Olympic Games Museum. This museum had 3 floors of sports memorabilia and exactly 2 customers: Chris and Gigi. It was only 4 Euros to enter, and we figured out why. Although it was very high tech, with LCD monitors and interactive exhibits (you could race Carl Lewis or try to outjump the world record holder) many of the exhibits were reproductions or pseudo important. Also, they needed a fact checker: Gigi noticed that the “Super Bowl was between the champions of the East and West conferences” and that “Wayne Gretzky scored 200 goals in one
season”. To get an idea how bland it was, Chris was excited to see an actual Davis Cup.
After leaving the “museum” we walked to the Stadio Olympic and tried to squeeze our camera lenses in between the gates. After taking a few low quality pics, we walked to the other side where you were allowed entry for free. They still use it for soccer matches and concerts, etc. We continued our walk through Montjiuic down to the fountains.
At 9 pm with sangria and cervesa in hand, the fountain show started. The fountains of Montjiuic are the size of Buckingham fountain, but they shoot much higher. They choreographed a show to lights and music, first starting with some strange hip-hop music, then progressing into Spanish versions of Disney songs. We played “guess the Disney movie” when each song came on.
We ended our time in Barcelona with one more tapas stop: this time at a German place called Alt Heidelburg. We drank Belgian beer and German wine in a Spanish tapas place. We both agreed that their potato salad couldn’t hold a candle to our grandmas’. Three sausages later we closed out our night by walking down Las Ramblas then a Metro to the room.
Off to Venice tomorrow. Adios…er…Ciao.
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Ken Boehne
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Barcelona
Barcelona is the one place in Spain that I would most like to visit. I'll have to hear what you think. Glad to know that you are well and having a great time. We miss you both. Take care. Dad and Mom and the rest of Blackhawk country.