Today was an old lady day. By that I mean that everything ached and I was tired before I even woke up. Of course, getting to bed at 3:30 AM and getting up again at 7:30 AM to make sure we got in our dose of hot chocolate and still get in line at the next destination before the lines get too long, might have something to do with it. Anyway, getting up and ready was really hard -- we both moaned and groaned. Vacations are supposed to be easier than this, but on the other hand, we are traveling, which is often not easy, just interesting.
We walked out of the hotel into an absolutely perfect day -- cool breeze, warm sun, beautiful blue sky -- and hobbled 3 whole blocks to the third hot chocolate place on our list, La Pallaresa. The hot chocolate there was better than La Dulcinea but not as good as Museu de la Xocolata. But that’s still pretty spectacular. After our chocolate, a plate of churros, and a plate of another Catalan-style pastry that’s kind of like a sugar donut (wow, chocolate and sugar and fried bread for breakfast -- doesn’t get much better than that no matter how you look at it), we felt much perkier and ready for our next Gaudi experience.
The target for the morning was Casa Mila, an apartment building designed by Gaudi and yet another UNESCO World Heritage site. We arrived by 10:30 AM to find a fairly long line and ended up standing in line for an hour, something I am rarely willing to do. But oh boy was it worth it.
When we finally got to the ticket and audio guide counter, we discussed just running through the building to save time, but thankfully our better judgment prevailed and we took our time -- we ended up staying there for 3.5 hours. I can’t help it, Gaudi’s designs just fascinate me. We were both mesmerized by absolutely everything -- the architecture, the structural design, the metal work, the mosaic work, the plaster work -- you name it, we gazed at it with full attention. Did I mention the 8 zillion stairs and additional 8 zillion little steps? My old-lady-day body did not take kindly to the constant step-up then step-down requirements of the tour.
By the time we got out of there it was 3:00 and we hadn’t eaten any real food that day (no, even I am not able to seriously claim hot chocolate and pastries as real food) and we were hungry. We hailed a taxi and dashed off to a famous restaurant for a full, Catalan, Sunday afternoon lunch experience.
The 7 Portes Restaurant (7 Doors) has been in continuous operation for 175 years. That isn’t a typo -- I really mean 175 years. It’s down by the port and specializes in seafood (oh goody, I can hear my friends say who know that I dislike seafood) but has lots of other interesting dishes as well. They also specialize in paella, a truly Spanish and Catalan dish. The maitre d’ looked like he’d worked there for 50 years and sternly kept potential diners at bay -- you have to get on the list and then wait until you are called. No problem -- he wrote our name on the list, which authorized us to sit in the chairs outside. But wait, the real problem was trying to recognize our name when he called it out. Luckily a multi-syllabic last name helps. We only had to wait about 30 minutes before we were called and shown to our table -- up an extra long flight of stairs. By this time I was nearly hobbling again.
But what a wonderful lunch we had. We started with Catalan-style spinach with toasted pine nuts and plumped raisins, drizzled with olive oil (I know, raisins with spinach is not a combo I would put together but it was delicious). Accompanied by a liter of sangria, of course. Then we shared a meat and vegetable paella. When we ordered, we got a bit of a raised eyebrow from the waiter because the paella was designed for one person and we were planning to share it. When it was served, the portions were huge and neither of us could figure out how any one person could eat that much. It was truly wonderful. And we kept drinking the sangria.
By the time we started giggling, we figured out that the sangria was rather more potent than most sangrias, but who cares, we’re on vacation! It about then that my sister said “stick out your tongue. Yup, purple.“ We compared tongues and both were a dark, vivid purple from the sangria. We started giggling again -- I guess we are easily amused, especially when drinking sangria.
We finished up with profiteroles for my sister (really good chocolate sauce) and a classic Catalan pastry for me that was a thin flaky pastry with a layer of pumpkin marmalade, topped with toasted pumpkin seeds. I had already eaten a few bites (finding it OK but a bit bland) when the waiter came over and poured me a generous glass of a desert wine that is intended to go with that dessert. Oh heaven -- the wine was perfectly paired with the dessert and all of a sudden the pumpkin flavors just came through beautifully. But between the sangria and the dessert wine, we were both a wee bit tipsy.
By this time is was 5:00 PM and we were exhausted. All we had done all day was visit one place and have a meal. You would think that could not take all day, but that seems to be our typical travel schedule. We decided to stroll along the marina for a bit and then caught a taxi back to the hotel. We both just crashed, but only allowed ourselves to sleep for 1.5 hours because we had reservations for dinner and a flamenco show (no rest for the weary travelers here).
Dragging ourselves out of bed again was simply murderous. We were definitely not hungry and we were not energetic enough to go anywhere. Nevertheless, we didn’t want to miss a good flamenco performance, so we pulled ourselves together and by 9:00 PM set off in a taxi for somewhere across the city to see El Tablao de Carmen. The restaurant/theater is located in El Poble Espanyol which is a set of buildings designed to be a miniature Spanish town. Originally built for the 1929 International Exposition, it is now filled with shops and restaurants with goods and food from all the different areas of Spain. Wow, we didn’t know about this place before and were very sad that we didn’t have time to come back during the daytime to explore. It is definitely on my list for my next visit to Barcelona.
Anyway, we wound around various small avenues in the venue to finally find the flamenco theater.
The theater is a small supper club with tables set in front of a small stage. The food was pretty good, a solid B+ I’d say, but we rated the show an A. We ordered a liter of sangria (2nd liter of the day) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I’d forgotten how intense and emotional flamenco is -- the dancer seems to be dancing only for him or herself. Of course I couldn’t understand the songs that were sung, but it was very clear from the facial expressions of the singers and from the dancing that some were tragically sad songs, some love songs, and some songs of joy. 3 women and 2 men took turns dancing. They were very good and we enjoyed it thoroughly.
We got back to the hotel by midnight (it felt downright early!) and I proceeded to spend the next entire hour trying to book and pay online for a tour in Dubai. With all the security procedures in place nowadays, it is very difficult to try to order and pay for something when you are connected on the hotel internet service in a country not your own. We really wanted to pay for the tour in cash but they wanted it prepaid online so I decided to pay by PayPal, which brought up a screen saying that they needed to verify my account and were going to call my home phone in the next 5 minutes. There was no way to tell them that I was traveling and not available by phone. But somehow, I was able to stumble onto another option and the deal went through, only to be told by the tour company site that I needed to print the confirmation and hand it over to the guide. But I am traveling and don’t have a printer with me. I suppose we’ll muddle through somehow -- maybe I’ll pull the I’m-an-old-lady-and-I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing card. That works sometimes. And so we ended our last full day in Barcelona.
Total score so far for 4 days: 3 hot chocolates, 5 liters of sangria (shared), 2 bottles of wine (shared), 1 glass of dessert wine (shared). We have one more chance tomorrow morning to increase that hot chocolate count.
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