Europe Tour: Day 13

Mon. 09-10-07 -- Barcelona, Spain
Originally published on: 10-08-07

I didn't sleep too badly on the train thanks to our trusty earplugs! I woke up a lot and I wasn't 100% comfortable, but I definitely got a good amount of sleep. At around 8:15am, the ticket man came by knocking on our door. He handed back our railpass and said we'd be there by 9am. We laid in bed for a while longer and I peeked out the window at the foot of my bed. Neat, I slept and now we're in Barcelona! When the train finally arrived, we got off and ate McMuffins at the McDonald's in the train station. We were still pretty groggy from our semi-rough night's sleep, but we figured out the metro (easy) and rode it to Las Ramblas.

Last Ramblas is a big street with a very wide walkway in the middle between the lanes of traffic. We found many cafes and stands and street performers as we tried to locate our hotel. It turned out that the maps of Barcelona that I had didn't have labels for the small streets in the Barri Gotic where our hostel is located. So we wandered aimlessly back and forth on Las Ramblas for some time with our big packs on. We were tired and frustrated, and we finally turned down a road that was supposed to have an information office on it. We couldn't find the office, but I looked down a side street and saw a big question mark sign. I had a question, so we turned and walked toward it. The sign ended up being for a restaurant or something, but by an amazing stroke of luck, the next cross street down this side street was where our hostel is located! We found it by sheer dumb luck and a "sign from above!"

We checked into our hostel, but the room wasn't ready yet. We left our packs in the lounge and left to see the city (after a quick look through a guidebook). We walked east on the main road nearest our hostel and made our way over to a chocolate museum. We passed through the Plaza de Sant Jaume which didn't look all that special, but was the Roman Forum way back in the day. After a little wandering we found the chocolate museum and checked it out. It was mostly cheesy (they had buildings and scenes made of chocolate) but it also told the history of chocolate which was somewhat interesting. I learned that cacao beans come from a gourd-like fruit about the size of an oblong grapefruit. I also learned that the spicy chocolate drink that the Aztecs drank didn't have sugar in it (sugar & chocolate didn't meet until Europe). A third chocolate fun fact I learned was that the first European chocolate came through the Barcelona port. And finally I learned that Africa's Ivory Coast is where the majority of cacao beans come from today.

After the museum, we continued on the road and found Barcelona's Arc de Triomf. Barcelona's is smaller than Pars', but I think I liked Barcelona's better. It was build with red bricks and had some cool ornamental spires at the top. After taking a few pictures we headed south through a park that was right there. Once we hit the zoo, we headed west and took a peek in on the train station we're leaving from tomorrow at 8:45am. We continued west toward the harbor but took a quick detour to see the Santa Maria del Mar cathedral. Standard but impressive cathedral, towering ceilings, stained glass windows, decorative facade, etc. We eventually made it to a column monument to Columbus and walked toward the water. We bought tickets for a 30 minute boat ride through Barcelona's port and got right on. We were both amazed at how HUGE Barcelona's port is! There were many large cargo ships and cruise ships parked in the port and there was still plenty of space for other ships. I seriously can't even describe it, the concrete landing spots just went on forever off of the coast! Very impressive.

After the ride, we walked back to our hostel and got into our room. This room is actually like a hotel room, very nice with our own shower and all! We were ready for lunch, so we put the camera on the charger (it was complaining) and walked to a Rick Steves' recommended restaurant. We got a nice outdoor table in a courtyard and ordered el menu del dia which was a 3 course meal (and glass of wine) for 9.20 euro! We had a few selections to choose from for each course and this is what we got: I got tomato basil soup (it was so sweet and delicious), baked fish with potatoes, onions & peppers (fish tasted similar to salmon but was white, the onions were just very lightly sauteed and were scruptious) and pineapple brulee for desert (2 slices of fresh pineapple with a scorched sugar crust ala creme brulee, YUM!), and a glass of red wine. Kara got macaroni noodles with cheese, grilled steak in balsamic oil, the pineapple brulee and a glass of white wine. It was all really good, a very nice treat from our mostly store bought meals. Lunch proceeded at a very relaxed pace which I really enjoyed. There was time between our courses, and we soaked in the cafe experience and talked and relaxed.

After lunch we went back to the hostel to pick up our camera. We got in our room and laid down for a little while to look at the guidebook. We were both pretty sleepy (especially with full bellies) so we decided to take a 1.5 hour nap before venturing back out... That 1.5 hours went by SO FAST! But we got up and walked up Las Ramblas to the Plaza de Catalunya. We continued up the steet into L'Eixample past the Manzana de la Discordia (a block of unique building designed by competing architects). We rode the metro out to La Sagrada Familia, but it was closing soon so we could only see the outside. The cathedral was very unique and it was interesting to see that it is still under very heavy construction (the guidebook says it won't be finished for 50 more years!) After walking around the cathedral, we rode the metro out to the Montjuic funicular.

We took the funicular up the hill and then took a gondola ride up to the castle. It was 8:30pm by this time so it was dusk and the city lights sparkled in the distance as we rode up. Once at the top, we had 30 minutes before the last gondola ride back, so we walked in and around the castle for a bit taking in the beautiful city skyline at night. With 10 minutes to spare, we caught the gondola back and rode the metro back to Las Ramblas. We walked back to our hostel and went to our room for the night. Our room has a private shower so we both enjoyed that (showers have become a luxury to savor) and then some reading and writing. Tomorrow we catch the train to Nice, so it was a short but very nice time in Barcelona!