Barcelona

I lied.

Well, not really lied. I just prematurely predicted that my blog postings for the Mongolia-China-Tibet adventure would be my last. So here we are in Barcelona, spending a few days in this beautiful city before boarding a ship for a winter cruise of the western Mediterranean. It is my intention to reduce the size and frequency of my postings, but I can’t totally dismiss my masochistic urges to post at least a few pictures, accompanied by irrelevant and irreverent muses.

So why a winter cruise where the weather is colder (at least this year) and wetter than Texas? For one thing, there are way fewer tourists with which to compete. The second? This Viking cruise will include stops in several cities and localities that we have not yet visited, such as Corsica, Malta, Tunisia and Algeria. (I didn’t even know that Algiers was open to cruise ships.)

But we begin in Barcelona. We’ve visited here several times before. Our flights over, on British Air via Heathrow, were on time and smooth. The food served on both flights, in a word, was horrid. Two bites of the lamb (unchewable mutton?) en route over the Atlantic and one bite of the pasta on the Barcelona leg were sufficient to destroy our appetites. (Frances took one look at the pasta course and didn’t even try.) And the rolls would have made stale bagels easier chewing in comparison.

I start with a photo (left) of Frances, my sister Peggy, and my brother-in-law Curtis, taken during their visit with us over Christmas. The picture was taken in a delightfully lit and decorated downtown Georgetown. Right is the crème brûlée we shared at the restaurant Pepito in Barcelona our first evening in town. It was more decorative than functional as a dessert.

Fortunately, after our arrival at the hotel in Barcelona (via uber), we had a fine dinner at a nearby restaurant (Pepito) to make up for this. Or maybe we were just hungry. 

The hotel, the Majestic, is quite nice and we were upgraded according to the receptionist. We’ve no clue why, but for what we are paying, it was the least they could do. Our one complaint was that the mattress sagged on one side. It was quickly replaced.

In fact, after the fix to the mattress, I emailed the manager with a list of three more room issues that warranted attention, including a semi-functional WC sliding door, a dripping toilet (I couldn’t hear it, no surprise, but Frances certainly could), and a crooked yet immovable picture over the bed (in a room with striped  wallpaper to boot). All were fixed before our return on the day of our complaint. A bottle of champagne and a tin of chocolate-covered wafers were waiting for us. I might have preferred a comp on the bill or a decent Bordeaux, but we appreciated the thought.

So what are we doing with our several pre-cruise days in Barcelona? We signed up for two tours. The first was an afternoon tour of Park Güell, a large, engaging complex of walks, stairways, terraces and gardens designed by Antoni Gaudi in his usual whimsical style. The weather did not cooperate and we suffered intermittent rains, making the steps and walkways cautiously transitioned activities. Hence, we did not stick around after the tour to explore the park further. Maybe we’ll come back in 2033 (fat chance of that at our age) when the Basílica de la Sagrada Família is scheduled to be competed (fat chance of that also) to enjoy the park more.

Views of and in Park Güell. 

All our ground transport since starting this has been via uber. In Barcelona, the relations between uber and taxi drivers can be touchy, at least according to one of our drivers. Our trip back from the park, however, was in a cab that operates both as a taxi and an uber. For us, we like knowing what we are paying before entering a transport, not having to deal with settling up at the end of a ride, and knowing our route during our ride. 

Thanks to the rain, we again opted for a restaurant within a few blocks of our hotel. Silly us, we made a reservation for 7:00 p.m. at a tapa restaurant, Sense Seny. Why silly? Not unexpectedly, we were the first customers and the only ones for a good forty minutes. Many of you know that the Spanish like their suppers at 9 or 10 p.m. Our early arrival worked out well for us. We had delightful chats with the owner and the wait staff. I should add that the tapas were wonderful.

Montserrat Abbey

Our agenda for our second full day was more ambitious. We signed up for a tour of the Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey, to be followed by wine tastings and tapas at a regional winery. Montserrat Abbey is an hour’s distance by bus from Barcelona, in the mountains northwest of the city. If it was cold and wet in town, try visiting the mountains in winter. Fortunately, between our Patagonia jackets and rain shells, we survived. We also had an excellent guide, Carlos, whose English was perfect. No surprise here as he once lived in Missouri.

The views came and went with the layers of fog and clouds, but even when it rained, the precipitation was more drizzle than downpour. Still, an afternoon coffee was a welcome break. (We enjoyed this while several of the younger of our group hiked out to the “three crosses” overlook of the valley. In an earlier life, perhaps.)

Views while visiting Montserrat Abbey.

We waited a half hour before entering the basilica while Sunday services were in progress. TV screens and speakers outside the chapel allowed us to hear the boys’ choir and music of the service.

Top left: Picasso’s contribution to the abbey. Top right: The basilica entrance. Middle left: The interior. Middle right: The “Black Madonna”, by myth, 1300 years old; by testing 800. Darker than apparent from this photo, its color is due to centuries of candle smoke and layers of dark varnish and paint.  Lower left: The stained glass over the entrance is quite spectacular, but partially hidden by the balcony rail and chandelier. Lower right: Montserrat means serrated mountains, an apt name as demonstrated by this view of some of the peaks.

Our tour of the abbey complex complete, we headed to a winery, Oller del Mas, for the promised wine tasting and tapas. The winery is located in what was once a small fortress. This area was at one time the boundary region between Moorish and Christian Spain. The winery’s product is limited and distributed only locally. The white was quite good as was the fully-bodied red we tasted. More unusual was the sampling of a lighter red produced in a medieval style, which these vintners called super bloom. All the wines worked well with the offered tapas. We were sufficiently sated that even after our return to Barcelona, we kept our evening meal light. (Well, at least Frances did.)

The fortress/winery. The barrels look quite new but (right hand photo) the vintners are experimenting with methods developed from as far back as Roman times. It was the Romans who first brought wine making to the area.

When we arrived back in Barcelona, it wasn’t raining, so we decided to walk the mile and a half back to the hotel.

We made it half way back before the rains fell.