Sabbatical 8/29 - Welcome to Barcelona
I first remember learning about Barcelona during the 1992 Summer Olympics. The establishing shots for that Olympics included a lot of shots of the towers of La Sagrada Familia, and I remember thinking that I would like to see it one day. Upon doing further research, I found all manner of other cool things to do in Barcelona, which is why I ultimately was to spend five nights in the heart of Catalonia, which is more than I spent in any other single location on my trip.
After recovering from my last night of excess in Montpellier, I enjoyed one more breakfast in the hotel garden and headed to the train station. One easy train ride later I was in Spain. In preparation for this trip I had even purchased a guide book, the Top 10 Barcelona, which I found to be amazingly helpful, particularly the pocket map. It had suggested my hotel, which was a short taxi ride from the train station. Even better, my hotel was a short walk away from most of the major tourist attractions. The Plaça de Catalunya, which is the unofficial city center bordering on the old quarter, was just a few blocks away. I took a quick spin through old quarter down to the Mediterranean, stopping for a milkshake.
As you might imagine, August on the Mediterranean is quite hot, so I decided a long siesta was in order. My room had very good air conditioning AND a lovely balcony overlooking a garden and I slept very well. Upon waking, the next order of business was meeting up with mishamish and babymonkey. Due to machinations to complicated to explain, they were spending the month of August living on a yacht on the Barcelona waterfront that they found via Airbnb. Since August was almost over, I wanted to get in touch immediately before they left, so I went to give them a call... and found that my hotel didn't have phones in the rooms. This was the only hotel I encountered like this in all of Europe, or in fact anywhere in the world that I've ever been. Obviously there were no pay phones anywhere nearby and the internet cafe the desk clerk recommended to me was closed. Fortunately, I was able to sweet talk the woman at the front desk into lending me her cell phone for a quick call and we arranged to meet near a posh club on the waterfront.
Using a nightclub as a meeting point led to one entertaining interaction. Rather than try to figure out the bus lines on short notice I grabbed a cab. When I told the cabbie to take me to this club he looked at me and you could almost hear him think "there's NO way that they'll let you in that club dressed like that." Fortunately, we were using it for a landmark instead and I met up with mishamish and babymonkey without incident. It was great to see them. We took a long walk along the beach while they filled me in on a number of entertainment options in the city. We then went into a beachside seafood place called Restaurante Salamanca and enjoyed a rather nice meal, including paella (a recurring them of the remainder of my trip).
After dinner, we strolled up and down Barcelona's magnificent beaches and watched the moon reflected in the Mediterranean. With the sun down, it was the perfect temperature. We had some ice cream for dessert. Finally I walked with them back to the waterfront where their yacht was (this still sounds funny to me) and I caught a cab back to my hotel.
I did not post any photos from this day of the trip.
After recovering from my last night of excess in Montpellier, I enjoyed one more breakfast in the hotel garden and headed to the train station. One easy train ride later I was in Spain. In preparation for this trip I had even purchased a guide book, the Top 10 Barcelona, which I found to be amazingly helpful, particularly the pocket map. It had suggested my hotel, which was a short taxi ride from the train station. Even better, my hotel was a short walk away from most of the major tourist attractions. The Plaça de Catalunya, which is the unofficial city center bordering on the old quarter, was just a few blocks away. I took a quick spin through old quarter down to the Mediterranean, stopping for a milkshake.
As you might imagine, August on the Mediterranean is quite hot, so I decided a long siesta was in order. My room had very good air conditioning AND a lovely balcony overlooking a garden and I slept very well. Upon waking, the next order of business was meeting up with mishamish and babymonkey. Due to machinations to complicated to explain, they were spending the month of August living on a yacht on the Barcelona waterfront that they found via Airbnb. Since August was almost over, I wanted to get in touch immediately before they left, so I went to give them a call... and found that my hotel didn't have phones in the rooms. This was the only hotel I encountered like this in all of Europe, or in fact anywhere in the world that I've ever been. Obviously there were no pay phones anywhere nearby and the internet cafe the desk clerk recommended to me was closed. Fortunately, I was able to sweet talk the woman at the front desk into lending me her cell phone for a quick call and we arranged to meet near a posh club on the waterfront.
Using a nightclub as a meeting point led to one entertaining interaction. Rather than try to figure out the bus lines on short notice I grabbed a cab. When I told the cabbie to take me to this club he looked at me and you could almost hear him think "there's NO way that they'll let you in that club dressed like that." Fortunately, we were using it for a landmark instead and I met up with mishamish and babymonkey without incident. It was great to see them. We took a long walk along the beach while they filled me in on a number of entertainment options in the city. We then went into a beachside seafood place called Restaurante Salamanca and enjoyed a rather nice meal, including paella (a recurring them of the remainder of my trip).
After dinner, we strolled up and down Barcelona's magnificent beaches and watched the moon reflected in the Mediterranean. With the sun down, it was the perfect temperature. We had some ice cream for dessert. Finally I walked with them back to the waterfront where their yacht was (this still sounds funny to me) and I caught a cab back to my hotel.
I did not post any photos from this day of the trip.