Valencia via train (5/18/2014)

I enjoy train travel.  In Europe, it is an awesome, comfortable, relaxing way to travel from place to place.  Mike always does the driving when we travel abroad so he rarely gets to see the various things or places I point out as we hurtle along at the high speeds of the European superhighways.  For a small incremental cost you can usually book seats in a first class car with plenty of luggage and leg room.  In our case, it even included a meal with a glass of wine!

Once we dropped off our rental car near Barcelona Sants Railway Station, we walked over to catch our train to Valencia.  It was a very enjoyable three hour trip through vineyards, nut and olive groves.

We exited the train station in Valencia and walked to the nearby metro stop to meet up with our apartment host.  We took the clean, bright Metro right into the center of Valencia's shopping and financial district.

It was a sensory treasure trove of sights, smells and activity as Valencian's enjoyed their sunny, Sunday afternoon.  We were immediately struck by Valencia's cleanliness and beauty.  For another very large, ancient city, it had little of the overwhelming feel of Barcelona. We had stumbled onto a secret, sophisticated gem on the Balearic Sea.

View of exquisite Bank of Valencia building from our apartment window

We walked along Calle Don Juan Austria to our fairly modern, multi-story apartment with an elevator in the heart of Valencia. As with all of our hosts so far, Laura was very helpful to get us situated and made herself available via email for any questions or recommendations.  It was a lovely start to our stay in Valencia.

We unpacked for a two week stay in Valencia, our longest continuous stay in one place since our travels began. It felt good to not live out of a suitcase.  As we arrived on a Sunday, the supermarket was closed.

Our first meal in Valencia was a slice of pizza from a walk-up vendor near our new apartment.  We wandered along in awe of the beautiful buildings, spacious, tree-lined sidewalks and enjoyable climate.  Little did we know on that first day all the delights Valencia would hold for us.

Sunset from our window the first night in Valencia

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.

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.

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!