After 24 hours of traveling, 16 actually in an airplane, we finally arrived with the sun to the coast of España.
Leaving PDX at 7:45 am, Thursday, we finally land in Barcelona at 9:15 am on Friday.
Barcelona has one of the largest old towns in Europe.
Our apartment was located in the Born district on Carrer Dels Flassaders. It was within walking distance to nearly everything- beach, parks, sights, restaurants, tapas bars, etc.
Our apartamento - La Manuela:
We started our first day with a walk by the Arc de Triomf (yes, Barcelona has one too).
Afterwards, we headed to La Ribera, another barrio in Barcelona. Our first stop was the church of Santa María del Mar, which is over 600 years old.
We proceeded to wander through the many streets of Barcelona afterwards, getting lost and yet acquainted with this sprawling city, all at the same time.
After wandering for a bit, we were ready for lunch. This is the largest meal in the Spanish diet. We decided to go to El Quatre Gats for el menu del día (fixed priced menu). This establishment was a popular haunt for a young Picasso back in the early 1900s. It is also where his first commissioned work was held. As you will soon see throughout this blog, being the foodies that we are, all of our meals are well documented.
For this meal, I enjoyed a cold vegetable cream soup to start. Followed by a whole sea bass "a la plancha"
Then finishing the meal with strawberry ice cream.
Kristen had a spanish version of spaghetti with an iberico ham cream sauce and parmesan, grilled tuna (overcooked), and a fruit salad. The overall meal was a B- but the atmosphere and history were fun.
At this point we had been awake for about 29 hours and feeling it. I have never been this deliriously tired at a restaurant before. The big meal and wine certainly didn't help. Thus, we headed back to our apartment for a 2hr siesta and shower. Emerging from home around 6 or 7pm, feeling refreshed and ready to explore again.
Our first stop was only a few blocks away at el Museo de Picasso.
Afterwards the evening saw us wandering through the winding streets and alleyways.
Eventually taking a journey down Las Ramblas - a famous street full of tourists, vendors, and a wide variety of buskers. An experience in and of itself.
We walked the entire Ramblas and then headed toward the water to visit the Columbus statue.
We rested our feet for a bit at the marina and boardwalk here before heading to our first tapas experience in Barcelona. We returned to our barrio, Born, and found a great Basque pintxos bar - "Euskel Etxea". We enjoyed cava and 8 montadillos - small tapas on crostini. This was our best meal of the day.
Among some of our finds, Kristen gobbled up a fish-cake with caviar. I found and enjoyed a spicy goat cheese topped with pistachios. Also consumed were blue cheese aioli topped with shredded cod, and some very tasty jamón & queso croquetas, smoked salmon and jamón.
We left the restaurant around 10:30pm and decided to retire for the evening. This is quite early for the Spanish but we had been up for almost 48 hours with only a 2 hour nap... so we were more than ready to hit the "cama".
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