Barcelona 2023 - Day 6: Home, Epilog

We packed up in the morning, and I went out for a baguette at the corner bakery so we could turn our leftover cured meats into some sandwiches.

Around 11 AM, we checked out at the desk and stored all of our bags in these enormous lockers, in the small garage attached to the hotel. I think the garage had 10 or 12 spaces, and was completely empty.

We had about 90 minutes until we needed to mobilize, so we meandered through the shopping area of Grácia, near the metro stop we'd be using all week, toward one of the plazas.

It was a national holiday, so the square was full of kids playing soccer or bombing around on scooters. Once it got too crowded, we moved on to the next square and ate our improvised picnic lunch. Sabrina also had some leftover paella, room temperature.

We should have stayed there, people-watching, all day, but we had to eventually return to the hotel to fetch our bags and hop the metro back to the airport. We knew from our prior trips that it would take about an hour to get there, including the walking, changing metro lines, etc.

The Barcelona airport was once again an absolute pleasure to traverse, so arriving 90 minutes before the (intra-EU) flight was perfectly adequate. We even had time to browse the jamon vending machines; the US CBP frowns on bringing any meat products into the country, unfortunately, so we didn't partake.

Our flight to Lisbon was about an hour and a half, and then we had around two hour until the next leg. Originally, we thought this would be time to eat an early dinner, but with TAP apparently feeding us on the plane, we didn't bother.

Instead, we sat at a cafe for coffee and a another pastel de nata; it's almost worth connecting through the Lisbon airport just for the snacks, in my opinion.

They have an entire store just for canned fish (sardines, anchovies, etc.), in case that's something you want to bring home. It was empty, when we walked by.

Our flight back to Newark was uneventful and quiet, except for all of the people coughing, as usual. Dinner was a choice of chicken/rice or mushroom ravioli, along with a small salad, roll with butter, crackers with soft cheese, and something resembling a whipped cream/cheesecake dessert with berry compote.

It was a 7.5 hour flight, so they woke us up a few hours later to give us... a snack, I guess? It was half of some sort of spinach wrap with either a soft cheese in the middle? Or maybe it was egg salad? I'm not really sure. Also a small chocolate bar with something crunchy in it. I think it was around midnight or 1 AM, Barcelona time.

By the time we deplaned in Newark, got through customs (shockingly quickly), retrieved our bags, got back to the car, and drove home, it was after midnight EDT, which felt like 6:15 AM to us.

Closing thoughts, notes for next time, etc., in no particular order:

The public transit is exquisite. We would not have been able to see all of the sights we saw, with such scheduled precision, without the ability to zip across the city so quickly. Whether or not the Hola BCN transit cards are a good deal, price-wise, is debatable; it depends entirely on how many trips/day you might make, versus just getting a 10-trip card or whatever. The fact that it includes the L9 line to the airport made it worthwhile for us, especially because we did two extra airport trips for the Mallorca overnight. There's also value is not having to think/worry about the cost of additional metro trips, like when we just went back to the hotel to pick up our bags, water bottles, etc.

By the end of the trip, we knew the core of the metro map rather well. Transferring to the L9 involves 4 or 5 levels of escalator, and is worth taking the elevator if you have luggage. (It's very deep underground.)

The great metro coverage meant that we never had to walk more than a mile, at the most. We chose to walk around quite a bit, averaging over 9 miles per day, or something like 50 miles walked while on this trip, not counting the travel days at either end. We also got in a few good bike rides, and did some serious Stairs Days on Tuesday and Thursday.

Everyone we met from the area, whether they were working, just walking around town, or fellow tourists, was extremely friendly. People are courteous on the subway, on the street, at the airport, etc. They're all just so happy, it seems strange to us coming from the US.

The eating times and late hours of everything takes some getting used to. I absolutely loved it; Sabrina was repeatedly in disbelief at how late people were out, eating, etc. Going to see tourist attractions before 10 AM meant there were virtually no lines. Going to dinner before 9 PM was a sure way to get a table without a reservation, as the rush seems to start at 9.

The thing to keep in mind is... they're sort of in the wrong time zone, geographically. The whole country moved an hour later, in solidarity with the bulk of Europe, during WWII and just never moved back. The details are a bit more complicated than that, but the end result is it sort of isn't as late as it seems, if one is concerned about the position of the sun.

There are coffee shops absolutely everywhere; the cafe culture is amazing. Sabrina was annoyed at the lack of decent tea options, because it's very much a coffee city. The ability to get a pastry/sandwich and a coffee, at any time the sun is up, anywhere in the city, is fantastic. I could really get used to that.

There are also corner markets/grocery stores on almost every block, at least in Grácia, Eixample, and the old city areas. The relatively cheap cost of food in the city, combined with the very favorable Euro/USD exchange rate right now, meant the costs seemed reasonable to us, even at "convenience store" prices.

We had heard/read the Barcelona was an "expensive" city, but that wasn't our experience at all. Again, the exchange rate helps, but the lack of tipping and low cost of beer/wine makes dining out much more affordable. The biggest sticker shock I had was the cost of tickets to enter the tourist attractions; two tickets to one of the Gaudí houses cost more than dinner out for the two of us.

On that note, the overnight trip to Mallorca was shockingly affordable. The ability to fly from Barcelona to Palma for under $50/person is difficult to fathom, coming from a place where we'd spend more than that for round-trip bus tickets from eastern Pennsylvania to New York City and back (about a 75-minute drive each way). The hotels were also very reasonable, everywhere. Traveling off-peak or in a shoulder season certainly has its benefits.

I think if we were to do it all again, I'd probably try to arrange the Mallorca side trip to line up with the end of the trip, so when we flew from Palma back to Barcelona, we'd just stay at the airport and fly home from there, instead of taking two extra ~1 hour trips to/from downtown. This would require storing luggage at the airport, which looks do-able, and would be putting a lot of faith in Vueling/whomever not to delay/cancel a flight or otherwise screw everything up.

The day trip to Figueres could've gone better, but we couldn't forecast a problem with the train. That mostly ate up the time we'd allowed to explore the town, but it was mostly closed due to it being Sunday anyway. I don't think we could've found much to do on Sunday anywhere in the whole country, though. Additionally, the train ride wasn't as scenic as I expected it to be (based on absolutely no information whatsoever).

We had initially considered different train day-trip destinations like Sitges (close) or Tarragona (about an hour, like Figueres). In hindsight, it's good we didn't try to go to Sitges because we saw signs advertising their film festival that we would have unknowingly tried to crash. I don't know that there would've been anything interesting to do in either city on a Sunday either, but the train ride would've been along the coast at least.

Aside from the delight that is wandering around old European city centers, the Gaudí attractions are a unique experience of Barcelona. Throw in the exquisite food and friendly people, and it's a trip that I would absolutely do again, given the opportunity. Next time, perhaps we can combine it with a trip along the Mediterranean coast, either to Costa Brava, or the south of France.

Barcelona 2023 - Day 5: Park Guëll, El Born, Picasso Museum

Our tickets for Park Guëll were for 9:30 AM, so we left the hotel around 9, grabbed a pastry on the way to the metro station, went one stop north, and then walked the remaining ¾ of a mile or so to the nearest park entrance. We weren't planning to go out for the whole day yet, so we brought nothing with us; it was nice to be unencumbered, even though it wasn't (yet) hot out.

There's enough of a hill along the walking route that they have installed an escalator, which was an interesting twist. I remarked that we just don't see that many of those outdoors, but then recalled that there were a handful of them between the national art museum and Plaça d'Espanya.

We were hoping to beat the crowds by going early in the morning, and the short line at the gate was a promising indicator that we may have been successful.

The brick building is Casa Larrard, the former farmhouse residence of Count Guëll designed by Gaudí, that was converted into a school around the time the park opened.

The main attraction of the park is the large esplanade in the center of the "Monumental Area", which is an elevated square, partly dug into the hillside, surrounded by elaborate, tiled benches. The official name is the "Nature Square" apparently. All of the areas have official names.

The square also affords a nice view over the buildings at the park entrance, originally built as a porter's residence and/or guard house (now a gift shop and museum?).

We toured around the monumental area for a while in the bright morning sun. This is one of the highlights that I remember well from the first time I was here, many years ago.

There were already three or four musicians setting up for the day (or already playing) at various little plazas along the tree-covered pathways, adding some gentle music to the cacophony of birds greeting the day. The palm trees, in particular, are home to many parrots.

The area under the Nature Square is the Hypostyle, originally intended to accommodate a weekly market.

As usual, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky.

Miniature versions of this iconic trencadís reptile are available in the gift shop at every Gaudí attraction we've visited. In fact, it's also the example photo in the Wikipedia article about the mosaic tiling technique.

The main staircase leading down from the esplanade is known as The Dragon Stairway.

After the main attraction, we began a lap around the perimeter, up the hillside and over the viaducts.

The city views were splendid, and the masses of tourists had not yet made their way into the park.

As with everywhere else in Barcelona, it's possible to see Sagrada Familia from various lookouts on the hillside.

Also making an appearance: Tibidabo. This is the closest we'd get to it all week, and it still looked rather far away.

By the time we finished our circuit, the area around the bathrooms and gift shop at the main entrance was absolutely mobbed. It seems that our (relatively) early approach paid off.

We detoured through some more of the neighborhood on the walk back, in no rush to get back to the Lesseps metro station, just one stop up from the one by our hotel.

Several people had suggested it was worth visiting (or at least seeing) Casa Vicens, the first house that Gaudí built (his "first significant work", apparently). It happened to be only a block from our hotel, and we hadn't gone that way to see it yet, so we took the opportunity to do so.

Just in front of the hotel, we were amused to see this team of construction workers who were jackhammering out concrete tiles from the sidewalk... during red lights. The drivers were beyond confused.

Back at the hotel, we geared up for the day and then headed downtown, to the neighborhood colloquially know as El Born (officially in La Ribera).

To get there, we returned to the area where we'd started the bike tour, on Saturday, in the Gothic quarter, and detoured around the Barcelona cathedral. We finally went under the Pont del Bisbe that we passed last time we were here, on the bike tour. It's one of those attractions that lots of tourists take a photo in front of, but we didn't understand all of the excitement. After reading more about it, I understand it even less.

We started following a suggested walking route from the guidebook, starting with a visit to the Santa Catarina market where we thought we might grab a quick lunch.

Despite being a similar (if slightly smaller and much calmer) concept to La Boqueria market, it turned out to be mostly the staples of local cuisine (meat, cheese, fish, and fruit), and didn't have the street food vendors that we (at least "I") was looking for.

If you need a lamb's head, though, they've got you covered.

Side note: I don't think I've ever seen so many oranges and fresh-squeezed orange juice, anywhere. Every little corner market has piles of fresh fruit, and many had a juicer like this one just inside the door. Maybe I haven't spent much time around the Mediterranean in the last decade, and this is common now? I could certainly get used to the ability to just get a cup of fresh OJ for about 2€, anywhere in the city.

With our next scheduled tour at 1:30, we didn't have much time to sit for a large lunch, so we shared a ham-and-cheese sandwich over coffee/tea at whatever cafe was next to the market (Vivari, a local chain).

See? Another fresh OJ juicer.

... but that was too quick, which left us 20 minutes or so until our appointment at the Picasso Museum; we opted to continue the tour of El Born a little bit, rather than sit around the coffee shop.

I briefly debated if we could fit a paella pan in our carry-on luggage, but my heart just wasn't in it.

Throughout the day, we often paused to admire the flora-covered balconies.

The neighborhood is a charming maze of shops and tree-lined boulevards, anchored by its namesake building, formerly a large market, currently a cultural center and/or museum that protects Roman/medieval ruins from the elements.

The former market sits at the end of Passeig del Born, just outside the Citadel Park (see Day 1).

We had just enough time to do a lap around the walkway and ingest some of the curatorial material before heading back up the street a few blocks to find the museum.

It's possible to go down and walk among the stone ruins, but only as part of a ticketed/guided tour.

Around 1:30 PM, we legged it a few blocks back into the neighborhood to find the entrance to the Picasso Museum.

The museum is a showcase of his life's work, arranged chronologically, starting when he was under 10 years old.

Again, the time-entry tickets prevent it from being overcrowded, which is nice. There was a group of young schoolchildren touring around, but other than that it was serene, with most people either listening to the audioguide players, or quietly reading the wall plaques.

There was a detour through a few rooms showing his work in ceramic. I mostly liked the plates with the faces on them ;-)

His famous work is apparently elsewhere, in other museums, as there's about a 40 year gap in the timeline.

Some of the popular pieces from this museum were temporarily moved, for an upcoming joint exhibit on Picasso and Miró, starting next week.

The building itself could've been its own attraction, in my humble opinion.

We spent about an hour admiring Picasso's work, capped off with a browse through the gift shop, before returning to the streets of El Born for some more snacking.

Both the guidebook and our bike tour guide (Day 1) had recommended a few places within a block or two of the museum, so we simply had to sample their offerings.

First up, we enjoyed a glass of cava, a glass of their house-made xampanyet (great loophole to avoid the ire of the French?) and a chorizo/potato omelet tapa at El Xampanyet. The setting might be described as "hectic counter service in a busy tapas restaurant", of which Sabrina was not a huge fan. The snack was delicious, though.

Resuming our walking tour, we next stopped to the admire the monument at Fossar de les Moreres, a war memorial from the war of Spanish succession in 1714.

Around the other side of that giant church was yet another place (El Chigre, "the winch"?) that was recommended by both Rick Steves and our bike tour guide, and we happened to need a brief respite from the sun to do some quick planning, so we stopped for a beer and a bacon-wrapped date stuffed with cheese. There were more words on the menu that probably described the additional things in this photo, but I'd stopped reading by then and already ordered it.

(We decided to take a look at El Raval (neighborhood) later, after finishing the walk in El Born.)

I had just managed to squeeze in the date/beer order before their kitchen closed for a few hours between lunch and dinner. While I was finishing the beer, an electric-assisted delivery... cargo tricycle? pulled up to drop off some fresh ingredients (for the dinner menu, presumably).

Coincidentally, there was also a Caganer store in that same area, so I was able to persuade Sabrina that we needed one of these charming defecators as a souvenir.

That church that we'd just done a lap around is the magnificent Basilica de Santa Maria Del Mar. It wasn't expensive to go in and take a look around, but we were already at quota for basilicas, so we passed on that opportunity.

We finished our tour with a shortcut through the Pla de Palau over to the waterfront, back at the edge of Barceloneta.

Montjuïc looms large in the distance, watching over the harbor.

Passing the aquarium, we paused for a few minutes on a pier-side bench to enjoy the ocean breeze. The view is of the inside of a working port, so there isn't much to admire aside from the horde of sailboats adjacent to Las Ramblas Del Mar (an extension to the famous boulevard built out into the harbor to connect Las Rambles with the waterfront).

Just past Las Ramblas, we strayed into El Raval for a few blocks. The guidebook describes is as "up-and-coming", but it didn't seem to have much to offer, at least at face value. Our observations were more in line with what's in Wikipedia article...

Leaving that neighborhood, we found ourselves grazing the back side of La Boqueria, so we popped in for a coconut/blackberry zumo and an empanada (pollo picante). 

I was under the impression that sea urchin is expensive, perhaps because of the amount of labor required to process them? These looked quite affordable, but that's the extent of my knowledge about them.

Who could resist that rainbow of fruit juice?

We weren't especially interested in fighting the crowds on Las Ramblas again, especially as it was a very busy night; later, it occurred to us that tomorrow is a national holiday (essentially Columbus Day), so many/most people had the day off from work/school. (Yet it turns out that the holiday isn't really observed in any meaningful way in Catalunya, perhaps luckily for us—we've been caught unaware on national holidays in other countries, and it can be difficult to travel/eat/anything.)

Instead, we cut over to the bottom of Avinguda del Portal de l'Àngel, a popular shopping street, and followed that up to Plaça de Catalunya, where we hopped on the metro back to the hotel.

We've seen plenty of McDonald's locations, a few Burger Kings, definitely a KFC or two, and I think even a Popeyes, but this was the only Dunkin we saw, underground in a metro station. Google Maps suggests there are two more of them in the city: one in the middle of La Rambla, and one in the shopping mall out by the aquarium. It's mind-boggling that anyone would want this, in a city full of coffee shops.

For dinner tonight, we again debated our options but ultimately returned to the recommendation list from the bike tour guy (how else does one choose from literally thousands of restaurants?); just after 8 PM, we returned to the neighborhood where we had paella/risotto last night, to a place just around the block called El Glop ("The Sip").

Thankfully, we just beat the 9 PM rush again, and were able to get a table without a reservation. We had come in just behind an Italian couple (wearing Harley-Davidson shirts), and managed to also get Italian menus, which confused us for a minute.

We split another paella, prefaced with a selection of cured meat offerings and more pa amb tomàquet.

We ended up with some leftovers, which works out well because we need something to eat tomorrow before heading back to the airport.

Check-out is at 11 AM, but we will find something to do after that for an hour or two, before beginning our journey to home. Our flight isn't until 3 PM, so we need to head to the metro station some time around 12:30. It might be nice to sleep in a bit, as we're going to have a long day tomorrow.