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Published: March 21st 2010
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At 5:30am our taxi from the hotel departed for Santander Airport, which wasn't even open when we got there. Once checked in and whatnot we boarded our one-hour flight and landed in no time - I slept the whole way. After checking our bags into a storage facility we headed into the city for 6 hours of non-stop walking and touring.
Our first stop was obviously for food, so we headed to a bakery Mike recommended for a round of croissants, mine being filled with delicious massapà (marzipan). Continuing on our way we spent an hour or so in the historic section and Jewish quarters where I got to see some interesting things I hadn't on my last trip here. One of such things was the Plaça de Sant Felip Neri, once a medieval cemetary. It is here that executions were carried out during the Spanish civil war, bullet marks from which can still be seen in the walls. Another was the Plaça del Rei, a beautiful medieval plaza home to the formal royal palace and the Chapel of Saint Agatha.
Since clearly croissants weren't going to hold us over, we next made our way to Caelum, one of
Mike's favorite sweet spots. First we ran into a Saint John's Day parade with traditional Catalan shawm music and big figurings being paraded around. Anwyay, everything in Caelum has been produced in a monastery or nunnery, from marzipans and liquors to cakes and dried fruits. We had a round of thick Spanish hot chocolate accompanied by a cinnamon cake, an apple-raisin super-moist cake, cookies with apricot preserve, and an almost turkish-delight like treat with a cider jelly...or something like that. Despite the sugar coma afterwards it was incredible.
We continued on our way heading eastward toward the Parc de la Ciutadella. This is Barcelona's answer to Retiro Park more or less and has a beautiful fountain, row boats, and green space. There are also random things like green parrots and a giant mammoth statue. We were lucky enough to be able to enter the Catalan Parliament building, also in the park, for a tour. It was pretty legit.
Next was lunchtime, and we had it planned to head to the Xampaneria, a place known for its über cheap champagne and cheap, delicious sandwiches. It was packed more than any restaurant or bar I've ever been to, and we
Placa de Sant Felip Neri
One can see bullet holes in this building from Civil War Executions here tried to get the attention of the guys before the counter for maybe 20 minutes. A group of braindead American study-abroaders blocked half of our part of the bar, so I'm blaming them. Luckily our 4€ bottle of Rosé and 2€ chorizo sandwiches were out of this world and made up for the discomfort.
Next we walked around the Barceloneta and along the water, but the weather was beginning to turn a bit cold so we headed further inland. I had to get my suitcase from Sants train station, so it was best to be on our way anyway, but first we stopped for tea at this great place owned by a Czech ex-pat. I had a wonderful chai with cacao, definitely needed to wake me up.
Once finished we realized we were way behind schedule and had to RUN back to the airport train once I finally had my suitcase (after talking to a moron at the counter who had no idea what I was talking about, of course). From there it was a mad dash and we legit almost were not able to check in thanks to EasyJet having its own stupid terminal away from everything.
By the time we boarded we were all nice and sweaty - thankfully we sat next to one another. In another 2 hours or so we were touching down in Berlin!
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