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Barcelona, Spain

There is a super king bed in our room which is on the top floor on the corner of the building so its relatively quiet which is nice. We also have a birds eye view of part of the city through our ceiling to floor sized window. The view is not spectacular with features, but just pretty night lights and interesting to watch the mini sized action of people and cars going about their business. Even though we are above a train station it is very quiet – we don’t hear a thing.

My cold led me to a bit of unsettled night with a racking cough, but Vernon who is a solid sleeper did just fine. We woke to a cold, dreary, rainy day which was not so encouraging so we spent time booking our tickets for the fast train from Brussels to Paris (getting in early for best value tickets) and also thought we should book for the Picasso museum here but they were sold out for today, so we have one ready for tomorrow. The hotel is great about printing for free which is super.

As we couldn’t do an indoor activity like Picasso we thought we would grab some cheap brunch and do the Gothic area walk as there maybe some shelter and hoped the weather eased for the afternoon.

We got our lunch goodies at the markets; some black tomatoes, a cooked white sausage, a black one, some Jamon and a roll. I was fascinated by the ribbed tomatoes (pictured) and wonder if they are cooking ones. They are quite large like beefsteak weighing on average around 350gr each. Pictured also are some delicious asparagus which I am craving but have no means of cooking (I may yet resort to raw) and interesting mushrooms (those are for you fungus lovers as you know Vern and I do not eat them however pretty they are).

As if that was not enough, and because Vernon felt like something warm we went over the road to one of the nice Tapa bars that we saw last night. It was delicious; they had different Pate’s on the bread and it was so creamy – we had a cheese one, olive one and a capsicum one ….. I think they are based on marscapone cream – NOM! Also had a large round crumbed potato and meat ball I suppose like a scotch egg crossed with croquette and that was tasty. A nice little bowl of potato salad with an olive aioli completed the meal washed down with a beer and juice to keep up our vitamins b and c. And just so you don’t think we are total gluttons, I would like to add that the roll, meats and tomatoes were kept for dinner, accompanied by a paw paw, strawberry and kiwifruit fruit bowl for €2 euro.

Feeling sustained and with the rain a bit lighter and somewhat intermittent we walked up to the Eixample (a block of the city) which was built in 1850 in a wider lighter style than the old town narrow ways. All intersections have 8 sides, as the corners are not square. Just did a block of this then cut across to the “Block of Discord” along the Passeig de Gracia (street). This is the area where you can view the famous modernista style of building by people like Gaudi. There are only about 4 of them, and its hard to imagine they are about 100 years old as they are so modern looking and out there – perhaps like something created in the hippy period of the 60’s and 70’s! We didn’t go inside as we didn’t fancy queuing in the rain, but enjoyed the view outside none the less. Hoping its fine in next few days so we can see more of Gaudi at his lifestyle park.

Heading home on the metro underground train Vern announced he just was too busting to complete the journey – the starts and stops of the train were beyond bearing comfort wise, we needed to exit – and quickly.

This is one of the difficulties in travel; firstly finding a toilet, hoping its clean, that you have the change if its a pay one etc…. we had tried to go before the train but the one at the station was closed for repairs. So we exited at the next stop popping up above ground to an area that looked a bit dodgy. To my calculations we were in an area that RS said to avoid due to undesirables. Too bad – nature was calling LOUDLY and fortunately we saw a bar near the metro exit/entrance. We shuffled as quickly as we could, ordered coffee, hot chocolate and a hurried where is the ASEOS (yes thats the word).

Whilst Vern was er busy, I checked out the Tapa’s at the bar and they looked mighty interesting. Long story short they were delicious. So was my hot chocolate which was in fact thick not too sweet, crave satisfying sipping chocolate nom nom. One bread had anchovy, white asparagus, olives and mayo …. another stuffed eggplant with tasty delicate meat, choritzo with Jamon, grilled peppers, caramelised onions, cheese …….

We were delighted to at last have found in Barcelona a place where locals eat, with local prices – half the price of the city centre and more like Seville (in the non tourist place we were in). Whilst we were the only non Spanish looking around, we felt ok and plan to go back for dinner tomorrow night despite what Rick Steves said about the area.

So moral of story – you can get off the beaten track in all sorts of ways and it kind of was a highlight of the day. Oh yeah, and Vernon said it was the cleanest toilet that he had been in in Spain (other than hotels).

So our day closed with a food top up with our market produce at the hotel and bed at reasonable hour for change.

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