TGV TO BARCELONA

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It’s Friday, must be Barcelona. The alarm went off at 6 am, after 30 minutes of snoozing, I was up and, in the shower, (Jerry gets an extra 30 minutes of sleep). Typical morning routine, shower, pack, breakfast, then off for the activities of the day. At the moment, in the room doing this initial blog entry, then it will be down to breakfast and off to the train station.

The trip to Barcelona is about 6 ½ hours by TGV, meaning a nap is in our future. Other than getting to Barcelona and then dinner, this is a light day, so the blog post will be short. Tomorrow, the trip begins in earnest, with sightseeing, wonderful food and wine, including biking around Barcelona. For now, it is just time to finish getting ready to leave.

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Its 6:14 and we are in Barcelona. The trip was 6 ½ hours long, which seems like a long time, but the seats were very comfortable (1^st class on a TGV does make a difference in comfort). On the downside, Europeans, especially the French, just do not believe in air conditioning, so the train was a bit on the stuffy side at times.

Breakfast at the hotel in Paris was standard fair, croissants, meats, cheeses and coffee. It was what you would expect. The croissants were good, but at the end of the trip we will have the best croissants at Hotel du Champs de Mar. It was a brief 3-minute walk to the train station, but then about another 10 minutes to our track. Our timing was perfect, the train left 10 minutes after we boarded.

Not really much to blog about at this point, it was a typical train travel day. We had lunch on the train, Jerry a classic Jamon and Cheese sandwich and I had a croque monsieur. Since it was a bit warm, I also had a nice cold sauvignon Blanc. There was the occasional cat nap, but mostly we just looked out the window enjoying the French then Spanish countryside.

Upon arrival at Barcelona Sants (a huge train station) it was a 15-minute taxi to the hotel. The hotel is on a pedestrian street, so we did have to walk a few blogs, all flat. We are at a Kimpton in the Gothic Quarter, and as always Kimptons go above and beyond. Received a nice upgrade to a large room with a balcony, Cava on check in. Jerry is out buying wine for out stay in Barcelona and well I am doing this. The only other thing on the schedule for today is dinner at the oldest restaurant in Barcelona. You know we can’t go on a trip without eating somewhere that is the oldest something.

Not much more to report until after dinner.

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Los Caracoles (1835)

This is not the oldest restaurant; we are having dinner there later. It is still pretty old and very popular. When you enter you walk through the bar to the reception stand, then the treat begins, to get to the restaurant, you must walk directly through the kitchen where you get to see the sofrito simmering, the snail’s waiting to be served, and the meats being grilled.

While the food was good, it was not as good as I could make myself. I don’t say that out of arrogance, as I fully expect anyplace in Spain to be able to make better paella that I do. Long story short, the food was good, the service as good, but there is no dish of the day.

We started with Gambas al Ajillo (Prawns in Garlic) it tasted good, but needed mor garlic and paprika and should have been sizzling hot, not warm. I there defense, they were packed and had at least 4 tables of 13 or more. Next up wat Gazpacho. This was a different take as it had no garlic and no bread as the base. It was good, just lacked depth and a little bite. Again, needed garlic and paprika.

Finally, we each had a paella. It was made correctly, as in it took a minimum of 30 minutes to prepare. This was a very different version than what we think of as paella. First the sofrito was a tomato paprika broth and not a cooked down mixture of onions, garlic, tomato and paprika. It also has zero saffron, which in the paella we are familiar with, saffron is key ingredient. I had a lobster and squid paella and Jarry had a Cod and vegetable paella. They tasted very good, just not exactly what we were expecting. Mine was a bit on the salty side.

That is really all I have to say about dinner. Would we go back, yes, because there are many other things on the menu that looked very good.

On the way there and back we walked through a large square surrounded by restaurants with outside seating and barkers trying to lure you in. Any place that needs someone standing outside accosting you as you walk buy, is not where you want to eat. In fact, our experience has been that you never want to eat in any place around a large plaza, yes there are exceptions, but 90% of the time, it will be overpriced and underwhelming.

It has been another long travel day, but the real fun begins tomorrow. Our first full day of hitting the sites. Up tomorrow is Gaudi, Gaudi, and Gaudi.

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