Barcelona
Barcelona
We got off the ship with all out
baggage at 8 am and headed for the Hotel Olivia Plaza. This is the hotel we
stayed
in 4 years ago while riding
motorcycles with our friends from Vienna, so we reserved a room there for old
times'
sake. It is situated right on the
Plaza Cataluna in the center pof Barcelona close to La Rambla, the Boqueria, the
Old City and the Gaudi-designed
buildings. Of course the room wasn't ready at that time of day, so we headed out
on foot after leaving the bags. We
had seen a Starbucks on the way in by taxi and headed there for a coffee fix.
That is one thing we thought
sub-par on the ship, the coffee. Rob actually became a tea drinker except when
we
went to Barristas, the coffee bar,
where they make individual cups on a big Illy machine. After a leisurely coffee
break, we went back to the hotel
and used their free wi-fi in the lounge to research restaurants for dinner. We
narrowed it down toa few and talked
to the front desk about them. They agreed on one and made us a reservation
for 8:30 that night. So off we went
again to explore the area.
By this time, things were opening
up so we walked down the Rambla. There is a large center area for walking
with small stalls offering flowers,
birds, blown glass, etc. On either side are traffic lanes. The Rambla goes from
Plaza Cataluna down to the main
harbor and there are museums and home on one side and the Barrio Gotico on the
other with lots of narrow streets
for walking only filled with cafes, shops and restaurants. There are large
hotels
on the Rambla and smaller ones in
the Barrio Gotico. The first and main item of interest to us was La Boqueria St
Josep, which is a huge market. We
walked up and down every aisle. There are stands that have been handed down
for generations offering fruits,
vegetables, meats, fishes, shellfish, cheeses, etc. It takes more than an hour
just to
walk around. If you want to, there
are small bar-like restaurants throughout offering breakfast and lunch
foods...if
you can find a seat, that is. We
love everything about the place – the smells, the sounds, the foods we have
never
seen before and meats and fish we
certainly don't find much at home.
After the Boqueria, we headed over
into the Barrio Gotico to find out where this restaurant, Los Caracoles, was
located so that we would know how
long to allow for the walk there that night. It was on a tiny street, almost
down to the harbor. You could see
the open fireplace through the wall and the chickens on the rotisserie. Then we
meandered through the Barrio,
taking all sorts of narrow streets and ending up in various plaza with art
shows,
markets for artisanl products (chees,
bread, honey), old churches, etc. Finally we ended up back at the hotel and
got into our room. It was pretty
much as we remembered it, with additional wear and tear from the past 4 years or
so since we were last there, but
very modern in design. Our room overlooked the Plaza itself and we could see
everyone gathering there and hear
the speakers ( one guy talked non-stop for hours about the slaves in various
countries, right below our window.)
By the time we had got ourselves settled, it was time to go out and explore
some more, so we headed up the
shopping street with all the high-end boutiques to see some of the Gaudi-
designed buildings. We decided not
to visit the Sagrada Familia cathedral this time. It has been under construction
since 1882 and we saw it on our
last trip. At that time nothing much had changed since Daryl's trip over 40
years
before, so we thought we wouldn't
notice much this time either. As we worked our way up the street, we decided
we shpuld have lunch as we had not
had breakfast on the ship and the coffee from Starbucks had already worn off.
We stopped at Navarra and had what
we though was going to be a light meal. Rob had duck leg and pear, cooked
in red wine (very sweet and
delicious, meat falling off the bone). Daryl had sea bream cooked in the local
style,
which meant with a crayfish on top
and potato slices cooked in butter underneath. After this and a bottle of Rioja
wine, we went back to our walking
to try and counteract lunch so we would have room for dinner.
In the late afternoon, we had a
glass of wine on the terrace and read for a while. At 8pm we headed out for
dinner,
into the crowds gathering on the
Rambla. There are always a lot of people out on the streets in Barcelona and
this
was a Saturday night and worse yet,
Barcelona was playing Real Madrid in soccer. It was on TV at 10pm, but
there were people from Britain and
other soccer crazy countries in town and getting revved up for this game
between two major rivals. On our
last visit, they were playing in Barcelona and the town was absolutely packed.
The police were ready for possible
violence then and were also out in force this time as well. We walked down
to Los Caracoles, which means the
snails in Catalan (Spanish, sort of). The restaurant dates to 1948 (as old as
Daryl!) and all the waiters seem to
have been there for ever. You walk in through the kitchen (would never be
allowed in LA, for hygenic reasons
– but then no one wears plastic goves or hairnets in Europe) and then we went
up several narrow stairways to a
room which had glass windows looking down on the kitchen where everything is
cooked over a huge charcoal/wood
burning stove. We ordered an appetizer and 2 starter dishes and a bottle of
wine, to be followed by 2 entrees.
However, we forgot the size of servings in this type of place. So we had a huge
plate of thinly sliced Serrano ham,
followed by a plate of white asparagus the size of tree trunks and their
specialty, escargots or snails Los
Caracoles style. Our expectation was the usual 6 or 12 escargots, but this was a
plate of about 40 small ones cooked
in a sauce of ham, chorizo, onions, tomatoes, etc. They put down the plate and
give you a dish of toothpicks to
pull the snails out of the shells. Now, we like escargots and used to have
brunches
where we served them, but this
style of preparation was beyond us. Rob did the dish justice, but Daryl was not
as
enamoured by it. We asked the
waiter to delay our main courses – 1/2 partridge for Daryl and 1/2 rabbit for
Rob -
for 15 minutes so we could digest
what we had already ordered. After 55 minutes we had not seen anything and by
that time, Daryl had gone past the
"tipping point". It was 10:30 and after a bottle of wine and the appetizers, she
was sure that another mouthful
would be her last, so we cancelled the order. Of course, they got all touchy and
a
manager even came to say the food
was ready, etc., although we could see that it had not been plated yet. So we \
paid for food we had not eaten and
left. We probably won't be welcome there again, so will have to find another
place to eat next year when we are
in Barcelona to board another cruise.
After a night's sleep, broken by
the yelling of soccer crowds in the Plaza (it was a tied game, 1-1, but it might
as
well have been a win from the sound
of things until 5 in the morning), we had a cab take us to the airport, leaving
the hotel at 6:30 am. The travel
day was relatively uneventful, with only minor delays in flights, but 27 hours
is a
long day of planes and airports
(even with access to clubs where you can sit more comfortably.) On our next
cruises, we are going to split the
return overnight somewhere, even though it means lugging all the bags around
and going through security more
often. The car service picked us up at 10:30pm in Ontario and we were in bed by
midnight....long, long day.
