After three weeks apart, David and I needed a mini-vacation by ourselves. With Southern Europe heating up for the near Summer, we decided to head to Spain. I had never been before and David had only been to the small beach towns, so we chose Barcelona as our destination. Everyone we’ve ever talked to that has been there only had good things to say about Barcelona – and after spending only 4 days there, we have to agree!
True to our nature, we woke up at 4:15 to catch the 7:30 AM flight out of Heathrow. The flight was only an hour and a half, so we landed in Barcelona in the early afternoon. One of the things we didn’t realize about Spain is the schedule difference… What we found was the Spaniards tend to wake up late, eat a small breakfast (maybe even two breakfasts depending on the time) and then have lunch between 1 and 4. After lunch, some people actually still take siestas. One day we saw road workers asleep in the middle of the road at 2 in the afternoon. Around 6 or 7, they’ll head out for some tapas and then have their real dinner at 10 or 11. So when David and I landed and were ready for lunch, we were out of luck because many of the restaurants didn’t open until at least 1:00. So we grabbed a couple of smoothies instead and held out for our Tapas Walking Tour at 5.
After checking into the Claris hotel, which used to be the Vedruna Palace and is still full of artwork from all over the world, we walked down the Passeig de Gracia to tour one of Gaudi’s masterpieces, the Casa Mila. Antoni Gaudi was a Modernist architect who created all sorts of crazy, whimsical, Art Nouveau buildings. The wealthier citizens of Barcelona hired him to build or renovate their apartment buildings in the Modernist style. Eixample, the area of Barcelona we stayed in, is full of these buildings.
The most interesting thing about Casa Mila, besides the fact that there are no straight walls anywhere in the building, is the rooftop. It’s circular and surrounds a couple of open-air courtyards. The air ducts and chimneys on the roof are so terrifying they are nicknamed the ‘witch-scarers.’ I don’t even know how to describe them, so I’ll just post the pics:
After leaving Casa Mila completely confused and a little frightened, David and I headed down historic Las Ramblas. This is a tree-lined avenue in the heart of Old Town. The street is filled with tarot readers, musicians, artists, and strangely… lots of caged bird stalls. We met our walking tour guide at the Palau de la Virreina, a palace built in 1777 for the Peruvian viceroy’s wife. There we headed through the narrow and confusing alleys of the old town to see the Cathedral, Town Hall and Palau de la Generalitat, the seat of Catalonia’s government. We also stopped outside the Gothic Cathedral and Royal Palace, where in 1492 Christopher Columbus was received by Fernando and Isabel after his voyage to the New World.
I also didn’t realize what an important center of Rome Barcelona was 2,000 years ago. An enormous temple to Emperor Augustus was built and has now largely deteriorated. To protect it from further ruin, it’s now housed inside a mansion. David and I were shocked to walk into a house and see four columns that looked like they belonged in the Forum inside. Little did we know, though, that Barcelona also has the most extensive underground Roman ruins in the world.
Our tapas walking tour would not be complete without some tapas, though. Our reward for walking miles around the Old Town was to stop along the way at different tapas bars and enjoy wine, beer, sangria, and tapas. We tried the patatas bravas (fried potatoes with spicy red sauce), butifarra (Catalonian sausage), bunuelos de bacalao (salt cod fritters), bombas (fried balls of meat and potatoes – my favorite!), pimientos del padron (green peppers with sea salt), and croquetas (ham, chicken, and cheese croquettes). If that wasn’t enough, after the tour I had to try Spanish hot chocolate so David and I stopped at the award-winning Café de l’Opera across from the beautiful Liceu Theatre. One of my coworkers, Joey, studied abroad in Barcelona and he loves chocolate maybe even more than I do, so when he recommended the Spanish hot chocolate, I knew I had to try it immediately! It was so thick and delicious, just like Joey described as a “melted candy bar.” To top it all off, it’s served with churros for dipping. I was in HEAVEN!
Friday morning I had booked a tour of Montserrat for us. Montserrat is a mountain in the heart of Catalonia that features a breathtaking monastery for Benedictine monks. The monastery is also home to the Black Madonna, a famous wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and Jesus that was carved in the 1100s. As if the monks and Virgin weren’t enough, the monastery is also home to Escolania, a prestigious boys’ choir school. The choir is formed of about 50 boys between the ages of 9-14 that live at Montserrat for 4 years during their schooling. After leaving, most continue their musical studies elsewhere and grow up to be musicians, singers, and composers. We were lucky because the choir was scheduled to sing at 1:00 on Friday afternoon.
Before meeting up with our tour in the University district, David and I walked back down Las Ramblas to La Boqueria, a huge food market. There, we picked up breakfast in the form of fresh fruit juices and some Spanish chocolate to snack on later. The market is huge and sells everything from specialty sweets like nougat and chocolate to fresh produce to very expensive meat and seafood. This part of Spain is famous for its Iberia jamon, or ham. The pigs are raised are farms and forage for acorns. Because the pigs are constantly working for their meals, the fat grows a certain way, making the meat very pricey. The meat is usually sold as chips or strips or for a special occasion, as a whole leg. One leg of meat costs nearly 200 Euros!
We drank breakfast and then headed out to Catalonia on our tour. David didn’t know that I had paid a bit extra for us to take the cogwheel train up the mountain instead of the tour bus, so we separated from the rest of the group at the train station and took the terrifying train up the side of the mountain. It was actually a lot of fun and there were some great views, but the squeaky breaks did not quell our fears… But we made it safely!
Once in the mountains, we toured the little village and church, and started to hike up the mountain before realizing we didn’t have the proper shoes/clothing or time to make it to the top, and headed back down. Then we stood in line to see the Black Madonna up close and offer a prayer. Before watching the boys’ choir, we also tried some liquor the monks make on-site. The Montserrat flavor made up of different herbs from the mountain was my favorite. Finally, we heard the boys sing and it was beautiful. We had a really great time up there and would like to go back to spend some more time hiking. A few hours just wasn’t enough on such a beautiful day.
When we got back into the city, David and I headed down to the port for some lunch. Paella is a typical Spanish rice dish that we had to try locally, so David and I ate at a beachfront restaurant known for the best paella in Barcelona. I’m not that fond of seafood, but I do like shellfish, so we ordered the lobster and shellfish paella with a side of pa amb tomaquet, bread rubbed with olive oil and tomatoes. It was delicious! All of the paellas are made for two, so they bring you your plate stacked with a bit of rice and lots of seafood, and then bring you the pan of extra rice to help yourself. It was such a romantic meal out on the beach with a bottle of wine after a great day in Spain. To top it off, afterwards we picked up some gelato and walked through the surf along the beach admiring the sand castles on our way to the new W hotel.
The W Barcelona is sooooo nice! It’s brand new in a terrific seafront location with terraces that overlook the water and bay. We stopped inside for some drinks and relaxed near the pool.
On our third day in Barcelona, we wanted to explore Montjuic. This is a completely different area of the city where the 1992 Olympic games were held. It’s a hill rising above the city full of museums, art galleries, gardens, and a castle built in 1640.
We started off by taking the metro (because our feet were already tired from two days of heavy walking) to the funicular. We rode the funicular up part of the hill, and then took a cable car up to the castle. We shared our cable car with a Dutch woman living in Austin near UT (what a coincidence)! The castle is an old fortress no longer in use but it was free to walk around and had great views of the city and harbor. I had an empanada for lunch there, and then David and I walked down through some gardens to the Olympic stadium.
Walking around the Olympic grounds got us both really excited for the 2012 Olympics in London. Once David’s assignment was extended to 2013, we knew we would definitely be in London during the Summer games next year. We have already submitted both of our applications for tickets and are now just crossing our fingers that we win the lottery… literally. Ticket applications are available right now only for Londoners, but tickets are being distributed on a lottery system because there are so many of us. The kind of strange part is if we win the lottery, we are obligated to purchase ALL of the tickets we applied for. Which means we will have A LOT of extras so visitors are welcome!! So keep that in mind…
But for now, back to Spain! After walking to the National Palace which houses Europe’s best collection of medieval frescoes, we took the escalators down to the Palaca d’Espanya to admire the Magic Fountains and statues and Barcelona Stadium before heading back on the tube to get to the port-side of Montjuic.
From there, David continued to conquer his fear of heights on Barcelona’s cable car. This cable car takes riders all the way from the top of Montjuic down through the harbor to Port Vell and the beach.
We ate on the beach again, enjoying tapas while watching the surfers and paddle boarders in the waves and people playing beach volleyball. Later that night, I had to try some crema catalana, so we went out to the Old Town in search of the dessert. We found it in a great restaurant and it was everything I had dreamed of. I LOVE crème brulee (I even have a mini kitchen blowtorch so I can make my own) and crema catalana is very similar. The only difference is the sugar is caramelized under a broiler, not with a flame. And sometimes the custard is flavored with lemon or cinnamon.
On our last day in Barcelona, I was awakened by the sound of David retching in the bathroom. He had food poisoning from the mussels he’d eaten on the beach the day before. He should’ve listened to me and never eaten those nasty, slimy creatures. So unfortunately, he stayed in bed all morning while I headed out to explore Sagrada Familia… all by myself. :(
The Sagrada Familia is Gaudi’s greatest work. The church has been under construction for 128 years and is not expected to be completed until at least 2026 – another 15 years! The church is full of elaborate, strange facades. Gaudi liked using nature themes in his work so the inside is meant to look like a forest. And I must say, the fluted pillars really do resemble trees. The church is full of natural light for now, but most of the windows are expected to be covered in stained glass when the church is completed. The nave can hold up to 11,000 worshippers and everyday 7,000 people visit the church. It is financed completely through private donations and ticket sales. Gaudi became completely obsessed with his project and even lived on the construction site for 14 years. He’s now buried in the crypt.
After touring the church, I spent the subway ride back to the hotel wondering if the word ‘gaudy’ is derived from Gaudi?? But alas, after some quick research I learned that is not the case – just a coincidence!
Not surprisingly, when I got to the hotel I had to drag David out of bed. We had already scheduled a late checkout and time was up! Poor guy. I decided some fresh air would be good for him, so we headed to our last stop in Barcelona – Parc Guell. Parc Guell was also designed by Gaudi and is now designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s a large park on a hill opposite Montjuic full of fantastical creations. For example, the longest bench in the world covered in mosaics is situated in the middle of the Placa Circular in the center of the park and there’s a gingerbread-looking house on the grounds where Gaudi lived for 20 years. After lunch in the park and a nice walk (by myself while David slept in the grass), it was time to head to the airport.
Barcelona was incredible! There were so many things to see and do! And now we’re the ones recommending it to anyone visiting Europe. You will not be disappointed. Everything from the scenery, to the art, the beaches and food is amazing! Just don’t eat the mussels… :) To view all the pics from our trip, click here.
True to our nature, we woke up at 4:15 to catch the 7:30 AM flight out of Heathrow. The flight was only an hour and a half, so we landed in Barcelona in the early afternoon. One of the things we didn’t realize about Spain is the schedule difference… What we found was the Spaniards tend to wake up late, eat a small breakfast (maybe even two breakfasts depending on the time) and then have lunch between 1 and 4. After lunch, some people actually still take siestas. One day we saw road workers asleep in the middle of the road at 2 in the afternoon. Around 6 or 7, they’ll head out for some tapas and then have their real dinner at 10 or 11. So when David and I landed and were ready for lunch, we were out of luck because many of the restaurants didn’t open until at least 1:00. So we grabbed a couple of smoothies instead and held out for our Tapas Walking Tour at 5.
After checking into the Claris hotel, which used to be the Vedruna Palace and is still full of artwork from all over the world, we walked down the Passeig de Gracia to tour one of Gaudi’s masterpieces, the Casa Mila. Antoni Gaudi was a Modernist architect who created all sorts of crazy, whimsical, Art Nouveau buildings. The wealthier citizens of Barcelona hired him to build or renovate their apartment buildings in the Modernist style. Eixample, the area of Barcelona we stayed in, is full of these buildings.
Casa Mila
The most interesting thing about Casa Mila, besides the fact that there are no straight walls anywhere in the building, is the rooftop. It’s circular and surrounds a couple of open-air courtyards. The air ducts and chimneys on the roof are so terrifying they are nicknamed the ‘witch-scarers.’ I don’t even know how to describe them, so I’ll just post the pics:
After leaving Casa Mila completely confused and a little frightened, David and I headed down historic Las Ramblas. This is a tree-lined avenue in the heart of Old Town. The street is filled with tarot readers, musicians, artists, and strangely… lots of caged bird stalls. We met our walking tour guide at the Palau de la Virreina, a palace built in 1777 for the Peruvian viceroy’s wife. There we headed through the narrow and confusing alleys of the old town to see the Cathedral, Town Hall and Palau de la Generalitat, the seat of Catalonia’s government. We also stopped outside the Gothic Cathedral and Royal Palace, where in 1492 Christopher Columbus was received by Fernando and Isabel after his voyage to the New World.
I also didn’t realize what an important center of Rome Barcelona was 2,000 years ago. An enormous temple to Emperor Augustus was built and has now largely deteriorated. To protect it from further ruin, it’s now housed inside a mansion. David and I were shocked to walk into a house and see four columns that looked like they belonged in the Forum inside. Little did we know, though, that Barcelona also has the most extensive underground Roman ruins in the world.
Temple of Augustus
Our tapas walking tour would not be complete without some tapas, though. Our reward for walking miles around the Old Town was to stop along the way at different tapas bars and enjoy wine, beer, sangria, and tapas. We tried the patatas bravas (fried potatoes with spicy red sauce), butifarra (Catalonian sausage), bunuelos de bacalao (salt cod fritters), bombas (fried balls of meat and potatoes – my favorite!), pimientos del padron (green peppers with sea salt), and croquetas (ham, chicken, and cheese croquettes). If that wasn’t enough, after the tour I had to try Spanish hot chocolate so David and I stopped at the award-winning Café de l’Opera across from the beautiful Liceu Theatre. One of my coworkers, Joey, studied abroad in Barcelona and he loves chocolate maybe even more than I do, so when he recommended the Spanish hot chocolate, I knew I had to try it immediately! It was so thick and delicious, just like Joey described as a “melted candy bar.” To top it all off, it’s served with churros for dipping. I was in HEAVEN!
After a late meal (Spanish style), David and I rolled ourselves back to the hotel to get some sleep before our early morning tour on Friday.
Friday morning I had booked a tour of Montserrat for us. Montserrat is a mountain in the heart of Catalonia that features a breathtaking monastery for Benedictine monks. The monastery is also home to the Black Madonna, a famous wooden statue of the Virgin Mary and Jesus that was carved in the 1100s. As if the monks and Virgin weren’t enough, the monastery is also home to Escolania, a prestigious boys’ choir school. The choir is formed of about 50 boys between the ages of 9-14 that live at Montserrat for 4 years during their schooling. After leaving, most continue their musical studies elsewhere and grow up to be musicians, singers, and composers. We were lucky because the choir was scheduled to sing at 1:00 on Friday afternoon.
Before meeting up with our tour in the University district, David and I walked back down Las Ramblas to La Boqueria, a huge food market. There, we picked up breakfast in the form of fresh fruit juices and some Spanish chocolate to snack on later. The market is huge and sells everything from specialty sweets like nougat and chocolate to fresh produce to very expensive meat and seafood. This part of Spain is famous for its Iberia jamon, or ham. The pigs are raised are farms and forage for acorns. Because the pigs are constantly working for their meals, the fat grows a certain way, making the meat very pricey. The meat is usually sold as chips or strips or for a special occasion, as a whole leg. One leg of meat costs nearly 200 Euros!
Once in the mountains, we toured the little village and church, and started to hike up the mountain before realizing we didn’t have the proper shoes/clothing or time to make it to the top, and headed back down. Then we stood in line to see the Black Madonna up close and offer a prayer. Before watching the boys’ choir, we also tried some liquor the monks make on-site. The Montserrat flavor made up of different herbs from the mountain was my favorite. Finally, we heard the boys sing and it was beautiful. We had a really great time up there and would like to go back to spend some more time hiking. A few hours just wasn’t enough on such a beautiful day.
When we got back into the city, David and I headed down to the port for some lunch. Paella is a typical Spanish rice dish that we had to try locally, so David and I ate at a beachfront restaurant known for the best paella in Barcelona. I’m not that fond of seafood, but I do like shellfish, so we ordered the lobster and shellfish paella with a side of pa amb tomaquet, bread rubbed with olive oil and tomatoes. It was delicious! All of the paellas are made for two, so they bring you your plate stacked with a bit of rice and lots of seafood, and then bring you the pan of extra rice to help yourself. It was such a romantic meal out on the beach with a bottle of wine after a great day in Spain. To top it off, afterwards we picked up some gelato and walked through the surf along the beach admiring the sand castles on our way to the new W hotel.
Playing with my food
The W Barcelona is sooooo nice! It’s brand new in a terrific seafront location with terraces that overlook the water and bay. We stopped inside for some drinks and relaxed near the pool.
On our third day in Barcelona, we wanted to explore Montjuic. This is a completely different area of the city where the 1992 Olympic games were held. It’s a hill rising above the city full of museums, art galleries, gardens, and a castle built in 1640.
We started off by taking the metro (because our feet were already tired from two days of heavy walking) to the funicular. We rode the funicular up part of the hill, and then took a cable car up to the castle. We shared our cable car with a Dutch woman living in Austin near UT (what a coincidence)! The castle is an old fortress no longer in use but it was free to walk around and had great views of the city and harbor. I had an empanada for lunch there, and then David and I walked down through some gardens to the Olympic stadium.
Walking around the Olympic grounds got us both really excited for the 2012 Olympics in London. Once David’s assignment was extended to 2013, we knew we would definitely be in London during the Summer games next year. We have already submitted both of our applications for tickets and are now just crossing our fingers that we win the lottery… literally. Ticket applications are available right now only for Londoners, but tickets are being distributed on a lottery system because there are so many of us. The kind of strange part is if we win the lottery, we are obligated to purchase ALL of the tickets we applied for. Which means we will have A LOT of extras so visitors are welcome!! So keep that in mind…
But for now, back to Spain! After walking to the National Palace which houses Europe’s best collection of medieval frescoes, we took the escalators down to the Palaca d’Espanya to admire the Magic Fountains and statues and Barcelona Stadium before heading back on the tube to get to the port-side of Montjuic.
The National Palace
From there, David continued to conquer his fear of heights on Barcelona’s cable car. This cable car takes riders all the way from the top of Montjuic down through the harbor to Port Vell and the beach.
We ate on the beach again, enjoying tapas while watching the surfers and paddle boarders in the waves and people playing beach volleyball. Later that night, I had to try some crema catalana, so we went out to the Old Town in search of the dessert. We found it in a great restaurant and it was everything I had dreamed of. I LOVE crème brulee (I even have a mini kitchen blowtorch so I can make my own) and crema catalana is very similar. The only difference is the sugar is caramelized under a broiler, not with a flame. And sometimes the custard is flavored with lemon or cinnamon.
On our last day in Barcelona, I was awakened by the sound of David retching in the bathroom. He had food poisoning from the mussels he’d eaten on the beach the day before. He should’ve listened to me and never eaten those nasty, slimy creatures. So unfortunately, he stayed in bed all morning while I headed out to explore Sagrada Familia… all by myself. :(
The Sagrada Familia is Gaudi’s greatest work. The church has been under construction for 128 years and is not expected to be completed until at least 2026 – another 15 years! The church is full of elaborate, strange facades. Gaudi liked using nature themes in his work so the inside is meant to look like a forest. And I must say, the fluted pillars really do resemble trees. The church is full of natural light for now, but most of the windows are expected to be covered in stained glass when the church is completed. The nave can hold up to 11,000 worshippers and everyday 7,000 people visit the church. It is financed completely through private donations and ticket sales. Gaudi became completely obsessed with his project and even lived on the construction site for 14 years. He’s now buried in the crypt.
The Passion facade
The completely different Nativity facade
The ceiling of the Sagrada Familia
After touring the church, I spent the subway ride back to the hotel wondering if the word ‘gaudy’ is derived from Gaudi?? But alas, after some quick research I learned that is not the case – just a coincidence!
Not surprisingly, when I got to the hotel I had to drag David out of bed. We had already scheduled a late checkout and time was up! Poor guy. I decided some fresh air would be good for him, so we headed to our last stop in Barcelona – Parc Guell. Parc Guell was also designed by Gaudi and is now designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s a large park on a hill opposite Montjuic full of fantastical creations. For example, the longest bench in the world covered in mosaics is situated in the middle of the Placa Circular in the center of the park and there’s a gingerbread-looking house on the grounds where Gaudi lived for 20 years. After lunch in the park and a nice walk (by myself while David slept in the grass), it was time to head to the airport.
Tunnel of pillars in Parc Guell
At the top of the park with the Mediterranean behind me to the left and Montjuic to the right
Barcelona was incredible! There were so many things to see and do! And now we’re the ones recommending it to anyone visiting Europe. You will not be disappointed. Everything from the scenery, to the art, the beaches and food is amazing! Just don’t eat the mussels… :) To view all the pics from our trip, click here.
