Me Encanta Barcelona, Ciudad del Jamon!

Barcelona is a compact city with many highlights that can be visited in as little as a weekend, or enjoyed throughout a week. The sites range from the medieval Barri Gotic with its small boutiques and ancient streets, the Port district's aquarium and nightclubs, the houses of Gaudi in the Eixample or the gardens and museums on Montjuic. Barcelona has plenty to see, but is not a city for sightseeing as much as it is for experiencing.

Quick Tips:

The Barcelona Card is invaluable. The card gives you public transportation access for as many days as you purchase it, airport transfers, entertainment, restaurant and shopping discounts, and reduced or free admission to many of the city's sites.

Best Way To Get Around:

Barcelona is easy to navigate. It is a highly walkable city, with many attractions located close together, broad clean sidewalks and pedestrian areas.

The Metro system criss-crosses the city, running from Park Guell to MontJuic, from the airport, into the center of the city. The Metro goes every where you want to go, and there are many stops & lines. The signage is in multiple languages. As Metro systems go, it's more complicated than Boston's T but easier than New York's subway.

The Hotel Inglaterra was everything we hoped for, modern, convenient, and friendly. The staff was welcoming and spoke good English. The cleaning staff did a very good job every day. The rooms were spotless and very modern. The bathroom was large and had a very nice shower, and there were two generously sized bath towels that were twice the size of normal towels. In the deep bath tub, I took a bubble bath every day.

My only complaint would be that the bed was rather uncomfortable. We asked for a double room and ended up with two single beds pushed together, not good for a romantic trip, not good for cuddling!

The hotel has a great location. It is really close to Las Ramblas, Barri Gotic, Raval, without actually being IN any of those districts and their subsequent noise. It is also walking distance to the Passeig De Gracia. It is near the metro stop Universitat and Plaza Catalunya, so you could easily go to outlying areas.

For lunch, we walked up to the Passeig De Gracia, and turned left after the Manzana De Discordia, and found Cinc Sentits, a restaurant I had read enthusiastically about. The 5 Senses is the English translation of the name. The meal was indeed an experience of the 5 senses, with 8 mini-courses. We ordered a bottle of cava to go with our meal. The meal lasted at least 2 hours, and each course was a delight. My favorite was the fois gras. Alli's favorite was the scallop. We both loved the Iberian pork. I do not have the words to describe how beautiful these little plates were, or how tasty the dishes!

I believe we were very lucky to get reservations. Believe me when I say this is one of the best meals I have had in my entire life, and I am serious about food. Spain is the home of the best restaurant in the world, and the chefs here are knowledgable about their historical cuisine, but willing to try new things. Cinc Sentits is owned by Spaniards who spent time in Canada, and there is some Canadian flavor to their dishes.

I encourage you to visit their website and read their menu, even if you cannot go to Barcelona. If you love food, it is sure to turn you on. I just reviewed it myself, and they have all new offerings. I am at this moment DOMK (drooling on my keyboard).
http://www.cincsentits.com/en/carta.htm

If you are in the Gracia neighborhood, either to visit Parc Guell, or simply because it's way cool, visit Himali. It is a very friendly restaurant, serving Nepalese food. Nepalese food is very similar to Indian food, with spicy curries. However, the food here is not so spicy as Barcelonans have a taste for bland foods (compared to other cultures). So it is safe for most people's palates.

Late at night, we stumbled upon the Xarcuterie, a bright storefront in the dark Barri Gotic. It is open late and on each subsequent night, we would run into again and again, although I could never tell you how to get there. Simply that, if you wander about the Barri Gotic, eventually you too will stumble upon this friendly casual eaterie.

We sat down at a table and ordered a bottle of cava, with ham croquettes, Iberian ham with melted brie on toast, and other delicious tapas. The food was fresh and delivered fast, and the restaurant was quite busy.

I really wish I could tell you where this restaurant is! I can't find any evidence of it on the internet, beyond my own blog entry! The name is memorable, so if you stumble upon it, remember I said it was great.

This restaurant was a great find. We originally saw it when wandering through the San Pere neighborhood late at night. It is a cozy place, tucked in a neighborhood full of ethnic restaurants and young people.

The music was very cool, chill-out world type stuff. The menu was supposedly exotic tapas, and it was exotic for Barcelona, a city very ensconced in its own cuisine. We enjoyed the
thai and Indian dishes, a contrast to the croquettes we had been eating daily. The small dishes were what made them "tapas". They also had sushi on the menu.

We ordered all this with a bottle of cava. It was a successful evening out.

Located on Las Ramblas, most visitors pay a visit to La Boqueria, especially after it has been featured on so many travel shows lately. It is well-worth it. However, you should know that there are many markets like it around Barcelona, which is a wonderful thing for the city's food scene.

Early in the morning is the best time to visit, before the rest of the tourists show up. Know your business when you step up to a stand to order coffee and breakfast. Admittedly, I was afraid to get in the way or screw up so it took me almost an hour to work up the guts to sit at a counter at Kiosko Universal. I made the mistake of ordering fried eggs on fries, rather than the spanish omelette I was hoping for - all because I was afraid to ask about what I was ordering! Alli got the plate of Iberian Ham. Delicioso! And the coffee here perked us up and kept us going for the rest of the day. Spanish coffee is quite good, if not quite up to Italian standards.

The rest of the market is a sight to see, heaven for foodies. It is filled with brilliant, fresh fruits and vegetables, and the most interesting meat selection you've ever seen. Whole pigs and lambs are an unusual sight for American shoppers.

With our Barcelona Card, we got free entry into the City Museum of Barcelonan History. This museum was located in an old building, in the oldest part of town, and covered all the history of this fascinating city and region. We learned about its settlement by the Laetani people, then the Romans (who called it Barcino), then the Visigoths, briefly the Arabs, and finally the Catalans. We were able to see the remains of the Roman city, underground. A very interesting part was the remains of an old winery! Of course, like every other City Museum, it had its obligatory video presentation - which we watched in Catalan!

The Barcelona Aquarium is a great family destination. It is a good aquarium, with lots of activities and interactive stuff. There is a large interactive area for small children. I did not partake, but it is worth knowing about - your kids would love it.

My favorite part was the moving walkway that went under the big tank, containing sharks, tortoises and other large sea animals. There was a sign that taught you how to determine whether a shark was male or female. Suffice to say, I spent the rest of my time examining the bottom half of sharks!

There was also a large penguin exhibit. Penguins are always a highlight of an aquarium visit! You could watch them below the water, or above, depending on your perspective.

MontJuic is a park atop the mountain, a huge park filled with museums and gardens, and empty space and cemetaries. We had to take a funicular from Diagonal station, and then we took this suspended cable car to the fortress at the top. The fortress has some very nice views of the sea, and of the city. The cable car is an expensive, but nice experience.

Then we walked down, getting lost all the way in gardens and on paths. It was meant more for cars than walkers, I think. There are so many different parks. If you enjoy Botanical Gardens, you will find much to admire here in the summertime. We visited in the wintertime.

The Barcelona Card will allow you to enter many of the museums here for a discounted rate.

We had lunch at Font De Gat, a cafe inside the park. It is reputed to have good food. While my travelling companion enjoyed her dish, I found my gnocchi quite one-note and boring. The cheese croquettes were good. The staff were overbearing in their attention to us, almost like they were watching us and judging us. We felt like we arrived at the wrong time, as we were the only people in the cafe.

Finally, we visited the Museum of Ethnology, an odd experience as there were 5 over-eager guards at the entrance who gave us their full attention, directing us where to go for our visit. This however was a very interesting museum, with particular attention to the ethnology of Spanish folk peoples. However, their exhibit on the native people of the Americas left much to be desired, especially considering that they conquered much of it!

I can't describe it - I just felt like we were being watched in our whole time in Montjuic. It was good when we finally got out! The place wasn't what we expected. It is also fairly far away from convenient metro stops and we had to walk quite a ways to find the metro stop at the bottom. However, there's only a few ways to spend a Sunday in Barcelona.

Summertime could bring a whole different feel to this place, so don't count it out! I'll mark it as Recommended for that reason.

Gaudi is the foremost architect of Spain, and there are many architects of import here. He is the famous one, and his unfinished cathedral is an icon of Barcelona, one of the reasons why people visit here. So, we spent two days on the Barcelona metro visiting the various masterpieces of his life.

After lunch at Cinc Sentits, we visited the famous Casa Batllo, the Gaudi house that looks like a dragon. It was very magical. Unfortunately the first floor was closed, but we could see the attic and the roof. Even these quarters, meant for servants, were beautifully designed, far ahead of their time.

Then we walked to La Pedrera, his apartment complex. I loved visiting the reproduction of a middle-class apartment. I would live there today if I could! The roof had chimneys on it that reminded me of storm troopers.

Sagrada Familia surprised me by not amazing me, as I expected. It was packed with people, and there was a 60 minute wait to go to the top (no more walking up), so we didn't go up. Everyone always asks us if we did, because it used to be easy and one of the best ways to see a view of the city. I enjoyed the outside more than the inside. Alli was disappointed by the amount of construction - she feels it isn't as true to Gaudi's intentions.

Parc Guell is located in the northern part of the city in the neighborhood of Gracia. We got off one stop before the park to find food in this neighborhood, which is rather bohemian and cool. Lots of neat little squares, like the Plaza de la Revolucion, and the Plaza John Lennon. We also found another market that was easily the equal of La Boqueria, without the tourists. Lots of cute boutiques, rather like the South End in Boston.

Parc Guell was really cool, very fantastical. We spent the rest of the day there. It was more of an experience than something I can write about. Packed with tourists, but only at the entrance. Most people just come, get their picture taken by the lizard, and go. It was like the Taj at the entrance, everyone waiting in line to get their picture taken! Huge numbers of tour groups here from all different nationalities, even more than Sagrada Familia. But those didn't go far into the park to explore it like we did. Though there wasn't much solitude, the park was just filled with people of all stripes.

My favorite site though was near the top of the park. We saw a sign on a nearby rooftop that read "If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?" Worth a chuckle and a snapshot!

Saturday night is a big night in Barcelona. There are night markets everywhere, and tons of people on the streets shopping. We wandered around the Gothic Quarter some more, stopping for chocolate croissants and cafe con leche. We got thoroughly lost for fun and had to wind our way back out again. Our leg muscles were killing us so we'd occasionally have to take a break on a bench and sit for a while. But it was chilly.

We ended up at the dock end of Las Ramblas and stopped at a wine bar for a mini-bottle of cava, and to kill time. We sat outside, drinking it, and saw some Moroccan acrobats do a show. I gave them 2 Euro for it and said "Shoukran".

We had to kill more time before the Flamenco performance at Los Tarantos (very disappointing, the dancing was uninspired and the show was far too short - wish we had gone to one of the bigger, expensive shows)...and then had dinner at La Taxidermista, which was okay. Too much wine! We drank the Coto again. Had a hangover the next day as a result.

Also, this experience was an excuse to post more gorgeous photos of Barcelona!