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Our flight to Barcelona was at 7:30 AM. On the boarding passes I downloaded, it looked like we were leaving from Terminal E. After 20 minutes in line, we got up to the desk to find we were in the wrong terminal. A hasty walk and we were now in the correct but even longer line and short on time. I had chatted with the woman behind us so when they started calling people for our flight, she made sure we were pulled to check our bags. Next came Passport Control with shorter, but slower moving lines. I pleaded our case with an airline employee who took us up to the front of the line. We were at the gate before they started boarding, but it was a little more exciting than is enjoyable before 7 AM.
Fortunately, getting into the city here was a snap using a bus that left from outside the terminal and dropped us off virtually across the street from the apartment. After getting a sandwich we joined our 3 PM walking tour of the Gothic Quarter of the city. The tour started in the Placa de Catalunya. In the center of the plaza there is
a small tent neighborhood publicizing the current movement supporting Catalan independence and the freeing of political prisoners being held by the Spanish government. The guide was a young Canadian woman who has lived here for 2 years. She was friendly and knowledgeable. This part of the city was originally walled and dates to the Romans. Among other things we visited the Cathedral. It is a very old church that had a facelift in the late 1800’s before Barcelona hosted a sort-of world’s fair. When the renovations were done, the part of the façade facing the square was updated and part of the front facing an adjacent street was not improved to save money. The guide commented that Catalonians are reputed to be frugal by some and cheap by others. As expected the streets are narrow and many couldn’t support auto traffic beyond a Mini Cooper. Since we are going on a 5-hour Spanish Civil War tour tomorrow we cut out at the start of her talk on this subject. We went back to the oldest surviving synagogue in Barcelona. Evidently there were Jews in the area as early as 200-300 CE. Beginning in the middle of the 14
th century with
Faux building
Large construction sites are covered to look like buildings in every place we visited. the arrival of the Black Plague, serious anti-Semitism started because the Christians needed someone/something to blame and 20% of the population was Jewish. We all know the rest of the story, but if you’ve forgotten you can check out Mel Brooks’ the Inquisition on YouTube. What you probably didn’t know is that the law that banished the remaining Jews who were too poor to have already left in 1492 was not formally repealed until 1968. In a square that had been a palace for the ruler and became the center of the Inquisition, someone asked why there was no plaque identifying the location. The guide explained that the Spanish don’t like to talk about negative aspects of their history, so you don’t hear about the Inquisition or the Civil War. She didn’t know that Spain has the highest rate of anti-Semitism in Western Europe, but wasn't surprised by this.
We had dinner at Cera 23, picked off of TripAdvisor and it was perfect for us – casual with flavorful, well prepared food. We were the first people to arrive for dinner which is what we expected when eating dinner at 7:30 in Spain, but during our meal the place
filled up with what looked like other tourists who probably also picked the place off TripAdvisor. This was our first real meal since leaving the States, so everything tasted especially good. My black rice with seafood and saffron sauce was wonderful.
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