Tale of two cities... (5/14/2014)

Barcelona, population 1.6 million.  Torroja del Priorat, population 179.  There are no zeros missing after the 179.  The next stop on our Spanish adventure would be in the little known DOC of Priorat and DO Montsant.  A week in the wine country was just the right break from the city of Barcelona.

The pack up, pack out, metro ride to the rental car pick up near Barcelona Sants train station was pretty uneventful.  Armed with our GPS and the map from the helpful rental car agent, Mike confidently got behind the wheel of the trusty Peugeot (standard transmission) to navigate our exit from Barcelona. Before we knew it, we the city streets gave way to an industrial district, then suburban areas with shopping centers, then agricultural areas with olive trees and artichoke farms and lastly the ancient walled villages, grapevines and Monsant mountains of the wine country.

We visited, fell in love with really, this area for 4 days on our last trip to Barcelona.  Stunning and magical are words that I would use to describe the disparate dotted villages that make up this region. This trip, we wanted to get a more in depth education about the area, its history and the wine.  We are not much for "pre-packaged" tours in our travels.  We are more plucky and unscripted about how we visit an area.  In this case though, due to the known language barrier and reserved embrace of the fledgling wine tourism industry by these small, family-owned, centuries old winemakers we opted for a local guide found at VisitPriorat.com as part of our experience.

Our guide, Rachel corresponded back and forth with Mike for several weeks prior to our trip to put together a personalized itinerary to the Priorat and Montsant wine appellations.  Our visit had a mixture of time on our own as well as a pair up with another couple from California who also contacted Rachel as a guide.

Our travel/arrival day was on our own but Rachel had arranged lunch for us at Restaurant La Cooperativa and a guided tour at Ferrer-Bobet both in the Village of Porrera.  Those visits and our additional days in Priorat deserve their own posts, coming up next...  Here is a sneak peak at the beauty of Porrera.

To tapa or not to tapa (5/12-13/2014)

I am not sure I will ever really understand the food culture of Spain.  There is more nuance to it by city, district and village than you can learn in a week or two.  It is made up of the food itself, the preparation, the time of day, the accompanying beverage, the location, your fellow diners, the method of dining (standing up at the bar, sitting inside the restaurant or outdoors), and the hour of your consumption and sometimes there is yelling and angst among the kitchen staff.  Yet that mystery is what makes it so beguiling to me. "Foodie", literally in Webster, is defined as "a person having an enthusiastic interest in the preparation and consumption of good food".  In Spain, it is just the way they eat, no additional "ie" needed to make it a pretentious noun.

Having said that, I always feel like a tourist interloper on the Spanish tapas scene.  Most restaurants in tourist centric areas cater to the masses as you would expect with menus in multiple languages and typical Spanish tapa fare.  We wanted to venture a little further afield for a more authentic experience.
Mike had a place in mind, Ciutata Comtal. (I would give you their web address but they have no website)  A place he had read about that served tapas to the local professional set.

We arrived just as the place was getting really busy.  We stood in the crowded bar contemplating our strategy to obtain a bar table or seat directly at the bar, all were full.  We stalked a couple of ladies who appeared to be paying their bill.  Fortuitous eye contact with a bar waitress cemented our position as next on those two stools.  A local couple in business suits made a beeline for the emptying seats as we stood slightly back, I swiftly acknowledged, Proxima! loosely translated, we are next.  They were gracious and moved on to find another place to sit.

We sat before the grandest display of tapas.  Some I recognized, some I did not.  We were provided a menu and ordered a couple of glasses of wine, then the fun of ordering began.  Our bar waitress was slammed but still very efficient and helpful.  We sat at the bar in wonderment of the various foods, wine and people we saw while sipping our wine and enjoying the delicious mystery dishes we ordered.  The menu was in Catalan and Spanish, no Ingles.  This is what we ordered:

1 copa Tinto casa

2 copa Rosado casa (we shared the second glass, really)

1 timbal del dia

1 gambas al ajillo (muy delicioso)

1 alcachofas

1 patatas bravas

                                                       1 escalivda tebia amb formatge de cabra

 










It was all absolutely delicious and a delightful tapas experience for a tourista.

Our last day in Barcelona we ventured into Barri de Gracia.  An upscale, residential neighborhood to which we had not been before.  We packed the local lunch of a iberica ham bocadillo and headed off to find a ancient, fountained plaza at which we could enjoy a respite during our trek.  The neighborhood was lovely and we happened upon the local mercado, most vendors were already closed for the afternoon siesta period but we wandered through.  We trudged on our quest to find a quaint picnic spot which at every corner seemed elusive.  We were a little lost as we had taken off planning to use a pdf map of this district on our mobile phone but it was almost impossible to read.  Finally, we were just too hungry to wait for the perfect spot. We sat on some steps of an office building near a busy intersection and ate.

We continued forward after lunch, the next block contained a beautiful, sprawling boulevard with benches and trees and a grand fountain.  We cracked up over it.  We found the metro station and headed back to El Raval and our apartment.

Our weekend in Barcelona (5/10-11/2014)

We had about 6 full days in Barcelona.  In all our many travels, we have never gone back to same city more than once.  Barcelona is now an exception.  This time we did stay in a very different part of the city called the El Raval district.  It was a great central location to La Rambla, Barceloneta (the beach/waterfront area) and the Barre Gothic quarter and la Ribera neighborhood.  

We found a free off-line self-guided audio tour mobile app called Excursia specifically for Barcelona. It was surprisingly thorough and gave us some ideas of new and interesting locations to visit. We chose to visit the Mercat Del Born with the idea that we would make the 1.5 km trek there, get some food at the Mercat and wander back through the city.  The only disappointment was that it no longer functioned as a market but only as an exhibition and cultural center.  While it left our stomachs hungry, it provided a very detailed and interesting history of the development of Barcelona. 

Lucky for us, you are never more than about 50 feet away from food in Barcelona.  On our trek back, we stopped at Bilbao Berria for tapas and sangria.  You sit down,  order your drink of choice, mine was Sangria,  then just go up and take whatever tapas you want.  As you finish, you place the skewers/toothpicks into the little silver holder at the table.  When you are done, they retrieve the skewers and provide your bill.  I love this about Spain.   

  

Of course, we had to stop for some gelato after tapas for our sweet tooth.

Using Facebook I was following a site called Time Out Barcelona.  Sunday was a lazy day in the morning but we planned to attend the Demanoenmano Social market (seen on Time Out Barcelona) and Picasso Museum.  Most museums in the city are free entrance on Sundays.

Demanoenmano, or ‘from hand to hand’ to use the literal translation, is divided into two halves - the first is devoted to second-hand and vintage garments, and the second is a platform for artists, designers, painters, sculptors, illustrators (and the list goes on) to sell their creations.  We enjoyed our walk through the wares and bought a couple of unique items to remember our time in Barcelona.

The line for entry to the Picasso Museum was fairly lengthy upon our arrival, but it moved quickly. This museum focused on his early work.  It was an enjoyable way to spend the early afternoon.

On our walk back from the museum, we accidentally happened upon the Sant Ponç Festival. A street market held in honour of the patron saint of beekeepers and herbalists, and ablaze with candied fruit, fresh herbs, natural infusions, honey and honeycomb, most of it straight off the farmer’s cart.  The street was packed with people, reminiscent of bees in a hive really.  We did not sample any of the honey or candied fruit. We did not know what the festival was all about until we got back and Googled it.  

We also planned to enjoy the local custom of a late afternoon Vermouth aperitif.  This is not the same kind of vermouth that you put in a martini but a locally produced fortified wine beverage.   It is served with soda water you add yourself and a small tapa before you eat your main meal of the day.  Luckily, Casa Almirall (founded in 1860) was located right across from our apartment and offered Vermut with an olive their signature drink to celebrate their 150th anniversary.  We sat down in this ancient establishment and watched the locals come in and out, kissing cheeks and chatting loudly in Catalan.

Great way to spend the weekend in Barcelona.

The Sagrada Familia - 5/9/2014

One of the most recognized tourist sites in Barcelona is the Sagrada Familia.  Is is visited by literal hoards of tourists each year and the lines were around the block when we came to Barcelona before. We took pictures of the exterior and moved on.  This time, we felt we should visit the interior to see what the fuss was about.  Also, as technology has progressed, you can now order your tickets in advance on-line so you do not have to stand in line.  Muy Bueno.

This is a religious place, dedicated as a basilica recently.  It is a work of art.  It is an engineering and architectural marvel.  It is a folly that began in 1882 is only 60 percent complete.  The commitment to the continued construction of the vision of Antoni Gaudi for this building is truly astounding.

We spent a whole day listening to the audio tour and staring up and down and admiring the true beauty of this spiritual place of reflection that is the centerpiece of Barcelona.  I hope you enjoy some of the pics, although it will surely not do it justice.

After an awesome day at Sagrada Familia, we happened upon Unami Burger where we had the menu del dia including vino tinto, gazpacho, lightly fried veggies with romesco sauce and awesome burgers. A great day.

Oh Barcelona, May 8th

Waking up in a new city is both exciting and daunting.  Maybe it is the unfamiliar noises of your new locale or your stomach growling for some breakfast that finally gets you moving after your long day of travel.  

First on the agenda, find a mercado for some staples and local fare.  Barcelona has one of the largest and most well known markets in Spain,  La Boqueria.  It happened to be conveniently located within a ten minute walk from our apartment.  It defies description of scale.  We had visited before on our previous trip to Barcelona and it again did not disappoint.  It is "farmer's market" porn.

Finding the local and nearest grocery store can be a little more challenging.  A short walk got us to Consume market, the local chain.  It had most any staple required to fulfill my grocery list of eggs, sausage or bacon, yogurt, coffee, wine, olives and cheese. We found amazing inexpensive wines (2-3 Euros) that turned out to be fantastic. I bought Pancetta de Cerdo (thought is was a bacon facsimile). It turned out to be fresh pork (uncured pork belly).  The first attempt at cooking it for breakfast turned out "meh".  I figured it out for the second preparation and it was not bacon but yummy anyway.

I also purchased "gazpacho original" in a 1 quart carton.  This is one of my favorite food items in Spain.  Not such a good purchase, it did not have the rich taste I was looking for.  After researching, I learned that I prefer the taste of "Andalucian" gazpacho which has stale bread incorporated, giving it a creamier texture.  Live and learn.  I have since corrected my error and had some awesome gazpacho out of a carton.

And if you can't find exactly what you are craving at the local market or grocery, you can be accommodated at CHOK, for a Kronut or some other exotic pastry.  Check out the link to see how they hang their little masterpieces on a pegboard behind the register.  Very creative and delicious.

Arrival and the big reveal

We made it to the Barcelona airport, major milestone.  

Now begins the intrepid journey to exit the airport, make a phone call to your host to notify them of your rather inconvenient arrival time, find the right transportation, buy a ticket for the bus/train, know the right stop at which to exit the transportation and then channel your inner Magellan on foreign streets to the apartment you reserved several months ago at 11 PM at night. 

First stop outside the baggage claim/declaration gate, get local currency.  Chose the buttons carefully, don't want to lose the ATM card in your first hour in a foreign country.  

Euros, check.

Our host had sent us fairly detailed directions about the bus from the airport, we need the blue Aero bus. Most airports are laid out the same so ground transportation signs were pretty obvious.  We got a visual on the big blue bus and it's nearby ticket machine.  Mike began his quest to call our contact so she could meet us at the apartment.  I went over to the ticket machine to procure two bus tickets.

Mike's first couple of phone call attempts did not go through...tension mounting.  I navigated the ticket machine to the payment screen twice only to be stymied by a PIN number request.  Rats!

In the din of the airport I hear Mike finish a quick call with our contact. Whew!  As tension rises for me at the ticket machine, a very helpful person comes over to explain that you can pay cash for tickets on the bus. It a common practice that most, if not all credit card transactions using machines require a PIN in Europe.  This is not common practice in the US as Mike found out when he called both our credit card providers the next day.  "Our cards don't have a PIN security capability yet, you will not be able to use your credit cards for payment at those machines that require it." Thank you and have a nice day.  I guess we are no longer the center of the technology universe.

We got on the Aero bus and uneasily ride along, hoping we are on the right one. The airport suburb gives weigh to to lights and density of Barcelona.  I hear our destination, Universidad Metro on the recording, I think.  The instructions provided by our host indicated a 45 min bus ride.  Our ride seemed much shorter, but sleep deprived and disoriented we schlepped our bags from the bus onto a very busy plaza.

There were hundreds of people bustling around us a we went in the wrong direction a couple of times.  It was like we were staring in a Candid Camera version of The Amazing Race.  We finally identified a few of the landmarks from the directions.  Mike may actually be a direct descendant of Magellan...

We walked purposefully, but uneasily down the narrow, graffiti-laden street of Joaqin de Costa with our suitcases and packs. Really, no one even paid attention to us, but it was slightly intimidating.  We arrived at the apartment and waited about 5 minutes for our contact to arrive.  

I remembered discussing that the apartment was on the 3rd floor when we booked it.  No lift/elevator.  We figured 3 floors would be OK to carry luggage.  As we began to go up, it was more like 5 flights of stairs.  The first two flights were not numbered, then the last 3 flights were numbered Primero, Segundo and Tercero.  The building was extremely old and the automatic timer on the stairwell light expired as we schlepped our bags up the stairs, plunging us into darkness halfway up.

We waited for Danielle to unlock the apartment door for the big reveal...it was newly remodeled as advertised with hardwood floors, 2 bedrooms, very modern bathroom and kitchen and nicely appointed living salon.  A very welcoming place to start our journey and our revisit to Barcelona.  

Award Travel

Sounds like a good thing, you are being awarded for something...right? That is what it is called when you book airline tickets using award miles that you have earned via your particular airline loyalty card. Some restrictions apply. In our case, flying to Barcelona, Spain from Orlando, FL was a total of 17 hours of total travel time.

We booked a British Airways flight with "award" miles from its partner American Airlines. This meant an overnight flight to London Gatwick Airport (7 hours and 45 min flight), an 8 hour layover in London and then on to Barcelona (2 hour flight) arriving Barcelona at around 9PM. This was the best itinerary available for "award" tickets.

Some carriers now charge you a per seat premium to pre-book any seat assignment more than 24 hours before your flight, including British Airways. If you don't pay, you can only select your seat at the time of check in. We debated the relative virtue of the $90 ($45 pp) on an 8 hour overnight flight, kept checking the seat map every couple of days to see who was shelling out the extra money. It looked to us like no one else wanted to pay the advance seat fee either. We checked in 24 hours in advance, got aisle seats in the bulkhead middle row with an empty seat between us. Now we wait to see if the gamble of getting a row to ourselves pays off.

After an uneventful 1 hour shuttle ride to the Orlando airport at rush hour, we dropped off our two suitcases to be checked through to Barcelona and proceeded through a rather short security line to our gate. Our flight departed on-time, feeling really lucky now. PAYDIRT...a whole row to ourselves. It did not make sleeping on the flight any better but we had legroom and an extra tray table to place our wine.

We had a great selection of movies to pass the time. I watched 12 Years A Slave (terribly moving and devastatingly sad), then needed to refill my "happy" tank so I selected Saving Mr. Banks (how can you not smile at Tom Hanks as Walt Disney). We got a rough hour or two of sleep then we were in London.

Mike had hoped that we could find a reasonably easy way to get into London to spend the hours of our layover.  There was no easy way to store the bags we carried on and London Gatwick is not as close as Heathrow to the city, so we decided to hang out at the airport.

Luckily, we have a membership card that gets us into some airline clubs across the globe. We quickly checked into a very large club with reasonably substantial free snacks, drinks and wi-fi (the Traveler's Trifecta). Bleary-eyed, we mindlessly ate and drank every hour or so to fend of sleep and boredom, caught up on current events on-line, read our books and people watched. It was a very busy place and many people came and went while we spent 7 hours there awaiting our flight to Spain.

The flight from London to Spain landed a little early at approximately 9PM , about 24 hours from our departure from Orlando. Hola Barcelona!