We spent the last three days and four nights of our trip in beautiful Barcelona, Spain. We expected a lot from Barcelona, and it more than delivered. It has so much to offer, it's organized and pedestrian friendly. We stayed at the Hotel Indigo on Gran Via de las Corts Catalanes, a boulevard as glamorous as it sounds, lined with trees and wide sidewalks. The location couldn't have been better, as it was walking distance to all of the major tourist sites and neighborhoods, and just two blocks from a Metro station.
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| Our room... king bed, great pillows, even a small balcony... |
We arrived in Barcelona on the afternoon of Good Friday. Careful research allowed us to arrive at the hotel during a quiet time between processions, and finding the hotel wasn't a problem. Locating the rental car return location... that was another story. The only address we had for the return was
Barcelona Sants, the train station. We assumed we would see rental car return signs if we drove around the station... wrong. A couple of phone calls later (thankfully someone was working at EuropeCar on Good Friday) and we were headed to a building
near the train station, with instructions to enter the underground parking deck, go down three levels, and "see the man". We arrived as instructed, "the man" checked the car over, gave the thumbs up, and we were on our way, with profound relief at having returned the car without a scratch. This might be a good time to mention that after seventy days in Sicily and Spain with two rental cars, not a scratch was put on either car! As the Hertz attendant in Palermo told us, "you are a lucky man".
At
Sants we purchased a ten ride Metro pass, and we were on our way back to the hotel. That evening we walked the very busy streets in the area around our hotel, marveled at some of the outstanding architecture, had a pizza, and called it a night. The plan for the next day was to go to the big flea market in the morning and ride the tourist hop-on, hop-off (HoHo) bus in the afternoon. The flea market, housed in an amazing structure called
Encants Barcelona, is billed as the World's largest... well, who are we to argue. The entire market is fully covered, but still open-air. The ceiling is mirrored...
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| Encants Barcelona, with mirrored ceiling... |
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| A multi-level flea market, fully covered... |
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| Anything and everything, old and new... |
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| Big crowds... |
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| A photo of the mirrored ceiling... |
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| We purchased this small pitcher, made in Teruel, Spain... |
We took the Metro back to the hotel and got ready for the HoHo bus. Two tickets purchased, we "hopped on", and found seats on the upper level. The bus was so much fun and so informative, and the weather so pleasant, we stayed on for hours, taking in all the sights, and making plans for the next couple of days. Here are some photos taken from the bus with our cell phone, a sadly inadequate replacement for our dearly departed camera...
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| Antoni Gaudi's Casa Batlló... |
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| Great iron street lights... |
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| Detail of Casa Battló... |
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| Antoni Gaudi's Sagrada Familia... |
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| Sagrada Familia...more on this later... |
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| The old bull ring, now a museum and shopping center... |
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| Part of a large museum... |
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| Christopher Columbus monument... |
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| Monastery converted into an art museum... |
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| Joan Miro' museum... |
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| Great columns at entrance to the art museum... |
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| Lichtenstein sculpture in the harbor... |
We finally "hopped off" near the harbor, having decided to wander back to the hotel through the
Barri Gotic, the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. Hungry and thirsty, we spied a restaurant called simply... Pork. While scanning the menu board outside, a friendly but somewhat intoxicated woman who was smoking outside highly recommended the place, so we went in. She and her party, who were from Pamplona, would later sit with us and socialize, but that's another story. We ordered a selection of pork sausages and some pork shoulder and belly. All were delicious, but the shoulder and belly were so good we ordered more....
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| Shoulder left, belly right, homemade bread and pickle in the middle... |
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| How can you not like a place with a flying pig... ? |
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| And two legs in the air... |
Our Pamplona friends had retreated to their table while we ate, we watched as they shared a round of absinthe, after the wine and beer they already had consumed. Our smoking friend was soon to find herself "napping" on the banquette, not surprising. After a very fun and delicious meal, we exchanged hugs, kisses, and contact info with the Pamplonans. The napper arose from the banquette, and while double kissing Joe fell into the table of people dining next to them! It was obviously time to
vamos...
We wound our way through the warren of pedestrian streets in the Gothic Quarter, with a stop at the Barcelona Cathedral, which is magnificent. Being the Saturday before Easter, it was packed. There were musicians and other entertainers in the large plaza in front of the Cathedral... it was quite a spectacle...
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| Part of the old city wall... |
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| Beautiful Gothic Quarter pedestrian street... |
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| And another... |
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| Barcelona cathedral, day before Easter... |
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| Inside the cathedral... |
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| Inside the cathedral... |
We made our way out of the Gothic Quarter maze and eventually to our hotel, tired and ready for a good night's sleep at Hotel Indigo. And already thinking about plans for Easter Sunday...
Click on or touch any photo to enlarge...
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