Barcelona and a bit beyond (if you've got a car) -- long review
Written: Jan 28 '03 (Updated Jan 28 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: food, architecture, ambience, beautiful countryside, beautiful people
Cons: not much!
The Bottom Line: Spain/Barcelona was my dream destination for years, ever since reading Hemingway novels as a child. It has lived up to these aspirations, and exceeded them. Great food, beautiful country!
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| cristine's Full Review: Barcelona |
(sorry for the capitalization errors -- my keyboard is acting up):
My husband and I visited the north and east of Spain. it's been years in waiting (we went to Rio (check out my review at http://www.epinions.com/trvl-review-4FF6-F3F39CD-3831E425-bd1 for our honeymoon, thinking it was CLOSER than Spain -- long story) -- and a place i've wanted to visit ever since i read my first Hemingway books in junior high. so with tickets and a week of open expectations, the doggies boarded, a friend housesitting, we set off for espana.
Barcelona
the first saturday
Arriving in Barcelona
trip starts off on good notes -- a decent plane flight for me with minimal nausea and even a few hours of sleep! what a difference business class makes -- but then again, i'm comparing this to my last overseas trip to London, where I sat in coach with the flu. this time i'm healthy and rested, with a husband who lets me encroach into his space, my head on his shoulder or my leg dangling casually across his lap.
we landed in barcelona (after a transfer in frankfurt) in the middle of saturday afternoon.
at the transfer in frankfurt, we took a good look at people getting out of first class -- and for awhile, we surreptitiously chased this guy that we thought was ben affleck. "ben affleck! was that ben affleck? on our plane? what was he doing in frankfurt?" alas, it was not ben affleck (although the guy acted strangely, like he didn't want to be recognized, and actually stood with his back to the rest of the departing passengers, face out the window, in the hallway before baggage claim). i didn't like frankfurt airport very much -- crowded, smokey, with benches just short enough that one couldn't take a nap on them (we had a 3 hour layover, and i needed a nap). it was also full of screaming kids for some reason. If this is a normal occurrence at Frankfurt, I've just crossed Frankfurt off my list forever.
Then we squeezed ourselves into a smaller plane to Barcelona, where they squeeze six seats to a row in an MD-80. a massive beefy man sat next to me. i thankfully slept for the whole flight, blissfully unaware of being wedged between two oversized men in a crowded plane.
we spent the biggest party night of the week in a jetlagged stupor. after checking in at the hotel (hotel rey juan carlos), we took a taxi out to placa catalunya (the big center plaza), and walked down La Ramblas to Barri Gotic (the Barrio Gothic), which is a crazy promenade of rambling streets in the middle of oldtown Barcelona. i was struck by the ironwork on the buildings and the art nouveau and gothic streetlamps in the Barri Gotic.
we were challenged for most of the week by the spanish dining schedule -- and the first day was probably the biggest wakeup call as we searched the barri gotic for a good place to eat in the late afternoon. we couldn't tell the difference between what could be good food and not good food and i'd left our travel guides at the hotel, so we plopped ourselves at a little neighborhood place in the barri gotic called don fernando. we ordered a seafood paella, and wolfed it down. not sure if it was good or if we were starved. the proprietor seemed both surprised and pleased at our ravenous dinner behavior -- maybe she's not used to liking the cooking? i made a note to myself to have paella again later in the week at a reputable place to make comparisons.
the rest is a fog. i believe we returned to the hotel and collapsed by 8 or 9pm. i remember waking up to whooping and yelling (in a five star hotel?) in the hallway and all the way up the hotel's atrium. it was a bunch of tourists screaming and laughing, apparently inebriated out of their minds. when i stuck my head out the door (and believe me, they were RIGHT outside the door by the elevator), they yelled at me, "Oh were you trying to sleep?! It's too early to sleep in Barcelona!" I think I mumbled something about arriving that day and being tired and shutting the door. They quieted down after that.
Sunday -- Eixample and La Sagrada Familia
Today was a big walking day, starting at La Sagrada Familia, an unfinished cathedral designed by gaudi. it's on the edge of the eixample neighborhood, which is a neighborhood full of modernisme (catalan offshoot of art nouveau) highlights, like gaudi's la pedrera and casa batllo on the block of discord on paseig de gracia. i think we walked about twelve miles that day, covering one end of the triangle of eixample to the paseig de gracia and avinguda diagonal.
La Sagrada Familia was awe-inspiring -- and unlike most other cathedrals I've visited, filled with a whimsy that fills the church with light and a sense of love. It's not menacing -- yet it is solemn in its size and magnitude -- but the color outside of the stained glass, in the mosaic work is progressive, like it wants to stand out among the other cathedrals in the eyes of angels. Also, it's very organic -- the steeples are like river-carved rock formations, and in fact, Gaudi was inspired by the rock formations at Montserrat. I make a mental note to try to visit Montserrat.
we siesta'd at a little place on avinguda gaudi by the sagrada familia called "piazzenza." although it highlighted pizzas, it had a rather good tapas menu, with crispy patatas bravas, fried calamari cooked just right (not rubbery and greasy like most places), empanadillas, and sauteed mushrooms. we were really aiming for a place called la llimona recommended by "the rough guide to barcelona," but this place looked busier and was full of locals, so we decided to go with our gut. it turned out to be a good decision. since the stores were closed, and the city seemed asleep, we lingered over our meal, and drank a carafe of sangria vino under the sycamore trees on the avenue. i was quite buzzed by the time we finished lunch, and chased down the bill (in spain, i've noticed that restaurants get patrons started very quickly on food, but linger on the bill -- as opposed to the u.s., where it takes forever to order and the bill comes rather quickly).
by this time, i've noticed that people really really like dogs here. there are a LOT of dogs! on the ramblas, on the avinguda diagonal, on the paseig de gracia. there are signs everywhere indicating where a dog is allowed or not allowed, leading me to believe that it's a point worth addressing. lots of cocker spaniels, and dogs that look like cocker spaniels mixed with dachshunds, and of course, dachshunds!
of course, this means a lot of dog doo. lots of little turds.
i'm starving at dinnertime, and we're cranky because we can't find a place to eat, and we're too tired to really focus on food sources. i keep wanting to go to the supermarket and get snacks, but we don't know where that is. finally, we resort to our concierge (the one named Jordi) downstairs, and he suggests La Taberna Cura in Gracia.
Monday
Montserrat
while my husband went to go pick up our rental car, i explored the hotel's fitness center which was out back by the polo field (polo fields in spain? yes -- everyday we'd look out our windows to horses being exercised -- and one irreverent horse in particular, which reminded us of our dogs in its whimsical disobedience). i got on their equivalent of a stairmaster thinking of calories and the late night spaghetti, which then dissipated into a rather exuberant enjoyment of exercise itself...and ended up with some stretches and doing squats in the squat cage, as well as using the adducter machine. The gym was excellent, complete with spa services. The only problem was that my legs were quite like jelly when my hubby came back with the car and we decided to go to montserrat for the day. i was really excited to get out of the city for a day, see the countryside, and perhaps get a little inspiration from the mountain that's inspired the region of Catalan and the master architect, Gaudi
We took the A-2 out of town, which started right by our hotel, and for awhile, it just looked like a normal freeway, while my driver/husband got used to the diesel manual stickshift. Then, about half an hour out of town, we could see Montserrat looming ahead on the landscape -- it just sort of pops out at you, with its odd shapes that scream, "I was under water once! I look like a giant underwater organically shaped sea castle!" It reminded me a little of the mountains in Korea which are also uniquely shaped -- with rounded heights and valleys, not craggy like the mountains I've grown up with.
We were hungry on the road (okay, we still had not adjusted to Spanish dining times -- and of course, we got hungry just as the roadside restaurants closed -- this was at about 3pm). Instead of eating, we stopped in one of the parking lots and took a picture with Montserrat in the background.
What an amazing place! We walked around the monastery a bit, and filed past the Black Madonna (La Moreneta) -- which is a Madonna and child statue blackened by years of candle smoke. It was inside a shield (like The Mona Lisa in the Louvre), but the Madonna's hand was available for touching.
After the monastery, we explored the mountainside a little -- we trekked up a little trail with spectacular views of the valley -- not a hot day, but intensely humid, so we gave up before getting to the top -- and after hanging a bit (and buying sheep cheese for 10 euros! what was I thinking?), we headed back to Barcelona.
Our first great dinner of the week -- at Taberna Cura, right next door to Botafumeiro (and it seems, the sister restaurant, not unlike Cafe Chez Panisse to Chez Panisse)! This was the restaurant recommended to us by Jordi on my meltdown night -- and by this time, I decided to let go and really enjoy the moments. The restaurant was in Gracia and ohmygawd, it was just about the best food abroad I've ever had. We ordered a slew of tapas and I had lamb and my husband had a steak. I can't remember anything else. I had to roll out of there, because I was so full and because I was so drunk.
Tuesday
Park Guell
We were going to drive north up the Costa Brava to the French border today, or perhaps down the coast...but instead, we slept in. Ah, the luxury! Plus, the weather, which was humid the day before, was positively dripping today -- it wasn't drizzling -- but more drippy. Drippy, like the air was so humid, it was just wet and because it refused to just rain, it just dripped with moisture.
Instead, we decided to go to Park Guell, another one of Gaudi's works. We decided to take the directions in the travel guide, and took the Vallcarca exit from the L3 subway line. Most of the escalators on the bda de la gloria were working, thank goodness -- but it was still a really really steep walk up to Park Guell. (Later, as we walked down from the park a different way, we discovered a much gentler walk). When we reached the Park, we took an uphill path, which took us to the three crosses up top of the park. No buildings in sight -- and dripping with sweat (or maybe not sweat, maybe dripping from the dripping of the air), we decided to head down the path towards the noise of screaming children. Perhaps the buildings were near a school!
We meandered through the park, with its shortcuts (and dogs, lots of dogs) down to what we realized was the roof of the Hall of Columns, withs its meandering and long mosaic ceramic bench -- like rickrack trimming -- and the walls that emulated the palm trees trimming the rickrack.
It was like Candyland!
Actually -- it was like Candyland full of aggressive tourists, fighting for a picture by the mosaic lizard fountain -- at first, people waited politely in line, and then a bunch of British (or was it those Aussies again?) tourists horned in on the line and then it was a free-for-all, and I tried really not to be crabby when I finally got a chance to take a picture -- my husband, ever the gentleman, was polite the entire time, and ignored my cranky demands to just step up front and take my picture.
So -- Park Guell I loved, the tourists I did not. Later, as our trip came to a close, we witnessed throngs of tourists checking into our hotel (and realized that we were visiting on the very very beginning end of tourist season). What we witnessed was not even close to the iminent mayhem of tourist season -- horrors. (We went in May just before the throngs were to arrive).
I think after Park Guell, we tried the Barri Gotic again -- seeing as the first time we went, we were totally zonked out from jetlag. We walked around, trying to find the antique stores -- which we did not. Were they all closed or something?! All we found were retail clothing/accessory stores as well as bar type places.
We crossed the Via Laietana and went east, thinking "maybe this is the part of the Barri Gotic with antique furniture." (on previous trips, I'd always insisted we turn around when we got to Via Laietana, mostly because my feet hurt).
The neighborhood got pretty iffy, and the stores changed from hipster boutiques to muslim butchers and thrift-like stores. It took us a long while to find our way back to the Barri Gotic, and to the Placa Antonio Maura by La Seu Catedral. A long time -- we had walked stubbornly off the tourist map, much like the time we walked off the premises of a state park and got lost in the woods a few years ago.
We're walking through town, and I'm noticing the smells, the people, the colors, the architecture, and how they remind me of my husband's family, their tastes, the Jewish art at Afikomen and other numerous Jewish bookstores in America...and I feel that there are deep Jewish roots here on a cultural and artistic level. Even if Judaism is not in practice here as a religion, the culture must have survived the thousands of years, since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. I see faces, that to me look distinctly Sephardic (like my husband, who was continuously taken as a Spanish native). I see the map and see the paths that could have been taken from Spanish to Morocco and Israel and Turkey. I see the art from Sevilla (where a large Jewish population existed), and it reminds me of a lot of Israeli and Jewish art today -- and I read my tour guides and their short written histories of Spain, and of the thousands and thousands of Jews who decide to convert and stay in Spain. Surely, the culture and traditions, even without the religion, must have survived. I see the Mogen Davids decorating jewel boxes in windows, used as secular decor, and I believe it has.
We had dinner at Via Veneto, another recommendation by our gracious Jordi the Concierge (we thought he was just about the nicest guy with the best taste! Of course, we kept tipping him which just got him more excited) -- I had the menu desgustacion (the chef's four course menu), not recognizing a single word there (it was all in Catalan, not even Spanish), and decided to just close my eyes and eat anything and everything. I ended up eating a chicken puff pastry "thing," some codfish, some cold seafood wrap, and the BEST, some veal/beef thing that was absolutely sinful. I do not remember the names, as I also had quite a bit of Catalan wine, and it was all a gorgeous feasting haze. Everyone had jackets -- the only person who didn't was an American at the table next to us, wearing an Applied Materials polo.
Wednesday
San Sebastian
Off we go! Massive roadtrip to the north! My husband suggested Pamplona, but it seemed such a small place on the map, and so close to the Bay of Biscay (and I was dying to see the coast), that we decided to push to San Sebastian (no we did not make it to Bilbao).
We drove through the countryside, saw the big black bulls on the hillsides (they are signs that used to be advertisements), and drove through the pyrenees in a little 3 series diesel BMW that we rented. When we got to San Sebastian, we were shocked by the cold. Like San Francisco in winter more than springtime in Spain (or at least the Spain we'd known until then). We had to go buy jackets (did you know it's very very hard to find womens' jackets in stores? they expect us to freeze! all they sell are flimsy tank tops and spandex pants! while it's very easy to find a man's jacket?) once geared properly, we walked through the town, along the Atlantic for awhile (where the surf pounded the breakwater), then up Mount Urgell (which used to be a key Spanish (then French then English) military defense point)...from Mount Urgell we had a gorgeous view of the scalloped beach in San Sebastian.
We contemplated staying the night in San Sebastian (we'd gotten to town at around 230pm and by this point, it was closing in on 5pm)...but the weather was horrid (fluctuating dramatically -- in a matter of seconds sometimes -- between brilliant sunshine to driving wind and drizzle -- the Atlantic is not a kind ocean), and the primary reason we'd be spending the night was to eat some good Basque food and potentially rest from the drive. We decided there was more to offer in Barcelona at this point (the weather was so horrid in the North we wouldn't even be able to enjoy the beach), and drove back south.
Speeding Drivers take note: I fell asleep while going through the Pyrenees, and it was at this point that my husband took advantage of my dulled senses and started driving at 240kph (which is pretty much over 135mph). He pretty much kept that speed up all the way to Barcelona, racing an Audi A8, an Audi S8, and various BMWs and jaguars. We were on the Autopista -- and I started thinking that the exorbitant tolls we were paying were to pay for the right to speed -- because I didn't see a single highway trooper there. Lucky us.
Thursday
Sitges
the beach! hot gay men! topless women! a drive shorter than one to san sebastian! weather that is not frigid! the blue mediterranean sea -- the rentable chairs.
we found a more isolated beach called placa de la ribera by the boats, and set down our towel there after we changed into beachwear. we were a bit away from the water, and the wind was kicking up the sand, which wasn't too nice, but it's something we quickly forgot about as we drank in the luxury of the sand, beach, and beautiful beach goers.
Just a day on the beach -- enough said, no?
We were very hungry by the time we returned to our hotel -- we decided to go for a quick run to El Corte Ingles for shopping (for CDs -- we were looking for that new Eiffel65 song) and then we had an urge for tapas, and we drove over to the Paseig de Gracia to get a meal on the sidewalk.
Unfortunately, we made an error in judgment and instead of going one block south to ba-ba-reeba for tapas, we went to place called "Tapa Tapa." Soggy potatoes, salty sauteed mushrooms, cold meatballs, chewy rubbery prawns. I drank sangria instead, as I sat on the Paseig de Gracia in my jacket, the cool night breeze skirting the sidewalk -- with its tourists ("Are we going in the right direction?") and the party-goers (thursday is the beginning of the weekend...).
We walk along the Paseig de Gracia -- and spot some pirelli shoes in a window -- Pirelli shoes! My husband thinks they would be cool, he could run around in them, making car noises, then come to a screeching halt, hopefully leaving treads. We look at the shoes, high above -- they actually have Pirelli tire treads on the soles. Europe has such cool shoes! (Campers here are half price! European designer clothing is much cheaper than the U.S.! But at Hilfiger's way expensive!)
Later that evening, with our bags of supplemental groceries from El Corte Ingles (fresh water, none of that flat Vichy (we called it 'fishy') Catalan -- btw, Spaniards have an obsession with HAM. Yes, ham. I mean, pork everywhere -- all kinds, and legs of pork just dried and hanging around apparently to eat slowly during the course of time, like one does a wheel of cheese).
Friday
Day at the Hotel and the Paseig de Gracia for shopping
We took the last full day in town to do some shopping and rest at the hotel. We hung out by the pool and drove around town a bit at a slower pace. We lazed about the pool, had a buffet lunch at the hotel, and then hit the Paseig de Gracia for some strolling and shopping. We tried to investigate the aforementioned Pirell shoes more in depth, but it turns out they're sold out of those shoes all over town!
Jordi the Concierge had one more recommendation for us -- a casual place for our last dinner at El Gran Cafe on Avinyo in the Barri Gotic. More food and a piano bar! Friday night, the Barri Gotic was in full swing with its bars and live music, and there was some sort of clothes-store opening outside the restaurant, with strobe lights and techno music (lots of techno music in Spain -- maximafm!)
Spain was a fabulous locale, and I would go there again and allot more time for more travel across this large and diverse country.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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Epinions.com ID:
cristine
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Member: Christine Lee Zilka
Location: California
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 11 members
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