Barcelona Part 1

Just arrived and all set after our super friendly hosts, Imma and Eduard, spent an hour detailing the surrounding neighborhood, markets, transportation, shopping and events. They even had a ticket for us to get our own subway tickets to start.

Imma and Eduard thought of everything it seems, and made our stay one of the best ever. Fun fact: there are color changing mood lights installed behind the headboard in case you wanted to disco shag.

A welcome basket of fruit awaited us along with a capsule coffee machine raring to go! Will definitely stay here again when we return one day! The kitchen was equipped with everything we needed to cook the amazing produce we got at the farmer's markets every other day.

Our first introduction to the world of ham! Every block had a shop like this with hundreds of cured meat goodies.

Cool building on our way walking to dinner that night.

Dinner at Quimet and Quimet, our first tapas experience in Barcelona. Every tapas restaurant has its own personality and this one is not one to be missed. Cozy with standing room only, this was where conversations with many strangers were started, friendships fueled by cava were made, and the locals running the bar were beyond friendly.

Clockwise from left, a smoked salmon toast with jogurt and truffle honey, glass of cava and their own Quimet beer brew, foie gras toast with black sea salt, seafood platter. Heavenly and genius combinations of fresh, homemade, and locally canned ingredients.

Prawns toast with roasted red pepper, caviar, yogurt, and balsamic glaze.

Pate toast with caramelized onions and balsamic glaze.

After dinner, we took in the free evening show otherwise known as the Magic Fountain at Montjuic.

Afterparty at the Palau Nacional.

We discovered Barcelona's city transportation to be one of the best and well organized we'd ever seen, partly due to the remodeling of the system for the 1992 Olympics.

The clocks count down the time until the next train arrival and every line's stops are outlined from end to end and lit above the doors within the trains. There is no mistake whether you are on the right train or not and you know exactly how long it will take to get to your stop.

Near Via Laitana.

Placa de l'Angel is the place to be.

Santa Caterina's Market, one of our faves.

Have you gotten enough fiber today?

A tropical feast for the eyes.

The tapas bar Cuines Santa Caterina within the market. Fresh beyond compare, we ordered the grilled squid with basil pesto oil and the delicate tiny fried fish. All paired nicely with a cold glass of cava.

Next came the lightly crispy and fragrant Iberico ham croquettes, a local favorite, another order of squid and the beef carpaccio with foie gras sauce. Outstanding!

We discovered a delicious local pick-me-up consisting of coffee mixed with a regionally produced anise liqueur.

Behind the Santa Caterina Market were some pretty cool buildings.

Typical alleyway in the Gothic Quarter, one of our favorite places in town.

The Gothic Quarter is home to small business and talented artists of all kinds. Here is where they set up shop and sell their wares, lending a young alternative vibe to the area.

Still in the Gothic area but closing in on the La Rambla shopping quarter.

The Ohla Hotel is a five star boutique hotel covered in eyeballs in the center of Barcelona.

"All the better to see you with, my dear!"

Their choice of architecture is a great blend of the macabre with old world charm, producing an unexpectedly chic effect!

Palau de la Música Catalana, just one of Barcelona's many UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Tilework on the Palau de la Música Catalana.

Surrounding neighborhood.

Went back to the Santa Caterina farmer's market and got some fresh monkfish for dinner. We grilled it and put it atop a savory fresh citrus spinach salad with balsamic dressing.

Here's a delicious treat I mistook for peanut butter ice cream at first bite, but it turned out to be the delicious local almond nougat.

Lunch the next day from the little farmer's market closer to home. Yes, those are snails in the foreground and yes, I ate them all!!

We couldn't wait to hit the beach after our market lunch! Saw some wonderful characters and lots of boobies.

It was a regular exhibition at the outdoor gym on Barceloneta.

How sweet, one guy even brought his mom to spot him.

The view off the pier at Barceloneta.

A modern sunset with one of Frank Gehry's famous fish forms for the Peix Hotel d'Arts in the foreground.

Another trip to the market brought us a meal of squid ink spaghetti alle vongole with a local beer and an avocado, spinach, tomato salad with balsamic dressing.

Woohoo! Next day was Casa Milá, or La Pedrera. This ended up being my favorite house he designed next to the Sagrada Familia church.

A little organic and a little crazy goes a long way! I love it.

Just one of the chimneys atop La Pedrera.

Ventilation towers.

More ventilation towers made to look like soldiers.

Check out the great view this guy has right next to the La Pedrera.

Inside the attic space of the La Pedrera is a small museum about Gaudi. This was one of the sculptures he did to visualize, using gravity, the flipped architecture for his next building project. Still don't get it? Hint: the conical shapes hanging down make up the spires of the building.

Signature sea life inspired tiles by Gaudi in the La Pedrera.

A nebulous jellyfish or sea organism, this ceiling lamp is just one example of Gaudi's love of nature's architecture being implemented into his own creations.

The adjoining cafe next to the La Pedrera that Gaudi designed.

Ceiling undulations are reminiscent of a desert landscape or an ocean floor.

The grand entrance doors to La Pedrera with its octopus tenticle-like webbing and glass tiles.

La Boqueria, one of the most famous markets in Barcelona.

Little silver edibles in the candy section.

Choices choices!

The fruit lady. There are many just like her at the individually owned fruit stands throughout this and other markets.

A happy accidental detour led us into the courtyard of the building that houses some of the parade giants and creatures, not yet put to work since the festival was still days away.

Just one of many beloved dragons who spit 'fire' at the Correfoc parade of the dragons.

Mini museum with all the parade creatures.

Wandering back out into the La Rambla shopping median, one gets a sense that the nightlife in this city never stops.

Another dinner at Quimet and Quimet was called for! This time from top to bottom: marinated snapper toast with roasted pepper and olive tapenade, the beloved salmon with truffle honey toast, squid toast with caramalized onions and balsamic glaze, and the foie gras platter with candied figs, chestnuts, caramelized onions and mushrooms. Another perfect end to the perfect day.

Casa Batlló or otherwise known to us as the Dragon House.

Amazing hand-carved wood staircase resembles the crest of a dragon.

One of my favorite lamps from Gaudi, very art deco.

More hand carved wood seen on all the doors in the building.

Currently an apartment building, the house actually has residents living within it's many roomed floors. Coming in and out must be so annoying with all the tourists!

The atrium as seen through the purposefully warped panes of glass on each floor. Gives one the feeling of being underwater.

Everybody who's ever tried to take a picture of the front of Casa Batlló from the rooftop has only ever gotten this far.

Casa Batlló from below. The house to the left of this is also quite beautiful and famous, but it's unfortunately like being Jesus's brother. Nobody cares.

Back at Montjuic for a day at the art museum!

Just another beautiful day.

Diners at the cafe at the Palau Nacional, aka The National Museum of Art of Catalonia.

The original city of angels.

A famous piece by Ramon Casas that used to hang at Els Quatre Gats, Barcelona's restaurant equivalent to Le Chat Noir in Paris.

Loved the bohemian feel and detail in this piece.

Picasso!

Gran Ballerina by Pau Gargallo

They also had a really nice photography collection.

After the museum we made our way to Olympic Park.

Montjuic Communications Tower

An unlikely angle makes the tower look like an alien spaceship.

Olympic Stadium of Montjuic, looking palatial in the evening light.

Sunset at Olympic Park.

Dinner that night: roasted artichokes with aioli and Mario's favorite dish of seared steak atop arugula with Parmesan shavings, pepper and lemon juice.

It wasn't a slow burn, a romance that took time to manifest itself. Barcelona was, for my husband and me at least, love at first sight. From her bustling city center to her teeming beaches, the city is a powerhouse of sensory entertainment, generating spectacular sights, sounds and tastes faster than our two-week-vacation-wired brains could process. We've never witnessed a city more vibrant and alive. During our belated honeymoon stay, we strove to get in a new experience per day and discovered a new side of Barcelona in her restaurants, on the streets, at the beach, and with her people that made us realize this: we couldn't get enough.

This probably had a lot to do with the fact that we booked our vacation with the intent of taking in the La Merce festival, the biggest celebration Barcelona offered that happened once a year in the middle of September. Having lived in San Diego and Los Angeles, I thought I'd experienced all there was to experience when it came to top notch entertainment and festivals, but this event was revelry on a whole new level. We had a good week from the 13th of September to the 20th to investigate everything on our own before the big festival capped off our stay. La Merce was four days of non-stop all-day free concerts, performances of all kinds, parades, and activities lasting from the 21st to the 24th. The entire city transformed into the biggest playground ever and you only had to look at the mind bogglingly extensive events list on their official website to know you were in trouble. Each event was set against the backdrop of some of the most gorgeous locations within the city. Should we go see the fire breathers at Montjuic or see the human pyramids at the Place de Sant Jaume? The evening parade of the dragons with fireworks through Via Laietana or the moonlit fireworks on the beach? These were the sort of happy quandaries we encountered and with preplanned itineraries from the night before in hand, we traversed her streets wide-eyed like children reborn. As far as we knew, we were witnessing Barcelona at its zenith.

A global socialite who endured many a makeover at the turn of the century, Barcelona remains fashionably dressed in Gaudi, Miró, and Picasso, the créme de la créme creative brand names of the time that continue to woo a new generation sick of fluffy coffee shop artwork and looking to witness true talent. This made Barcelona one of the more moderately expensive places to visit, especially if you stick around the Passeig de Gràcia area or add up your entrance fees to Gaudi's achievements. We were, however, most impressed by all the things you could do cheaply or for free. The parks, for example, are all free and there are no less than 68 of them, 12 of them historical and more like outdoor museums. I was half expecting to have to pay to see Park Guell, it also being one of Gaudi's great works, but it was a pleasant surprise to arrive at the entrance and find that you were welcome to wander around within the labyrinth as long as you like--albeit the park was chock full of tourists. The beautiful beaches were of course a given freebie, but one we didn't count on were the farmers markets, open 6 days a week usually until 2-3p and sometimes longer, closed Sundays, and located in each neighborhood. We lost ourselves several times just looking at some of the most perfect figs or specimens of local seafood we'd ever seen, and all of it very affordable by European Euro standards. Most of these markets also had the best tapas in town frequented by locals and tourists alike and we found ourselves scheduling our lunches around our market visits. Another unexpected free attraction was the Magic Fountain located at Montjuic that put on free half hour shows to prerecorded classical, opera, and modern music every Thursday to Sunday from 9-11pm. You got the sense that the city wanted to provide its community with beautiful surroundings they could be proud of and enjoy in their everyday lives. It was good to be Catalonian.

With that being said, we have to say that Barcelona is not considered by the locals to be a part of Spain. Only after reading Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' and doing a little research on our own did we learn why we were corrected upon arrival by the owners of our vacation rental that Barcelona is not Spain. The locals were not Spanish, they were Catalonian. I'm not going to go into details about the history, you have Wikipedia for that, but I do have to say that after learning of the struggles the city and surrounding areas endured we felt as if we better understood the underlying anarchist vibe she possessed. As we climbed atop a three and a half meter high concrete flagpole block at Montjuic with a handful of other tourists and locals to see the grand final fireworks display of the La Merce festival, we were overcome with the emotion of a people still coming to terms with their past and seeking independence. Near the end of the show, after an already impressive pyrotechnics exertion behind the dancing Magic Fountain set to classical and modern ballads, Freddie Mercury's eternally ethereal voice suddenly ebbed over the ocean of people who had gathered before the palatial grounds of the Palau National in front of us. The fireworks had stopped and a reverent hum could be heard. Unbeknownst to all but the locals as a cue it seemed, the song 'Barcelona' by Queen washed over us as the ocean slowly began lighting up with waves of sparklers so vast as to appear like a glowing landscape of organic glowing sea life. It was a dialogue between city and citizens meant to applaud, stir, and galvanize its people, embodying a longing that was ever present:

 

 Barcelona! It was the first time that we met

Barcelona! How can I forget

The moment that you stepped into the room you took my breath away

...

And if God is willing, we will meet again someday

We could only gaze out over the field of stars and hope.