Day 10: June 23 (Granada - Barcelona)

Our plane from Granada to Barcelona

The day started early. We got up and to the airport very smoothly.  The hotel arranged to have breakfast one half hour early to accommodate our departure.  The early morning was refreshingly cool.  The taxi arrived precisely on time at 7:30 am.  There was absolutely no traffic.  I thought that there might be some rush hour traffic but we sailed right through town.  The flight from Granada to Barcelona went smoothly.  The Barcelona airport was very impressive; well laid out and easy to use, lots of upscale stores, and meticulously maintained.  The floors in the main terminal area were so shiny that it was a little disconcerting.

We took an aerobus from the airport to within three or four blocks of our hotel - Villa Emilia - which is very modern in design.  It was a little early and our room was not ready.  We left our bags and went to get some food and do some orienting to our new locale.  We walked up to Placa Espanya (using the Catalan name).  The Placa was very large scale and the entrance to Parc de Montjuic.  On the way back to the hotel we stopped in at a pharmacy to renew our supply of adhesive tape for my foot. We walked back on the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, a beautiful boulevard with a parklike median including benches and a tree lined bike / walk path.

Our room at the hotel was ready when we returned.  Like the lobby area, the room was also ultra-modern.  The bathroom was too modern!  The sink was so shallow that you can barely wash your hands; laundry was hard.  The shower was unusable without making a huge mess. A style over substance / function problem.

At the Picasso Museum

We looked at maps and then headed over to the areas on the other side of Las Ramblas to do one of the ipod tours that Neil had downloaded.  It was beautiful, and there were tons of people.  We saw the new market now being rebuilt and went to the Picasso museum.  I think Neil's favorite thing in the museum was the display of Las Meninas variations.  We tried to figure out from the descriptions how lithographs were made.  We got completely perplexed when it came to adding more than one color.  We had the remains of some food at the museum restaurant (it was very near closing) from a surly clerk.  The neighborhood around the museum had very nice stores.  Our ipod tour took us to the Church of Santa Maria del Mar in the Born district.  This was a beautiful Catalan Gothic church.  When we got there, an organist and 4-5 singers were rehearsing.  The sound through the church was amazing. Outside, we stopped and got some ice cream and sat on a bench in a little square.  A boy was trying to wash off his dog with water from a drinking fountain.  The dog was not happy.  I saw many nice dogs on our walk.  The Daschunds here are real size, not minis.

Santa Maria del Mar

We lost our tour path for awhile but stumbled upon the next stop (the Merkat de Born) and then went on to the Parc de Ciutadella, which was also on our ipod tour though we did not realize it at the time.  The Parc had a strange fountain with a gilded top with elaborate stairways leading up to a waterfall over some way over the top statues of horses.  It turns out that this was designed by Gaudi, the modernist architect whose famous works are all over Barcelona.  The Parc had a nice center promenade ending at the Zoo and some government / parliament buildings on one end and an Arc de Triumph on the other.  There were many people using the Park, including some people doing Brazilian caloric (I think).  I do not think that this park was as lovely as the other parks we have seen.  The Barri Gotic and other older sections are very beautiful, as are the big boulevards. They feel very urban, "normal" European, and have a very different "vibe" compared to Andalucia.

Gaudi fountain in Parc de Ciutadella

Coming out of the Parc, we went into the Estacio de Franca train station to use the bathroom.  (Bring your own toilet paper!)  We walked back to the Born neighborhood where we ate dinner at El Rosal de la Taverna.  We had salads, a shrimp (gambas) tapa and a montadito de solomillo with brie (steak on toast with brie) tapa.  The shrimps came whole, including their little heads with eyes.  I did not like to look at them and it was hard to get to the meat. While we were eating, two little girls at a table of about ten people next to us walked over to another table and asked a man for his autograph.  I assumed he was an athlete of some sort.  He was with two other men and a woman. The men were the only people in the restaurant not drinking alcohol.  They were all drinking cokes while the woman had a beer.  The man signing his autograph was very gracious and asked the girls some questions.  They started the conversation in English, then switched to Spanish (not Catalan).  After our meal, we continued to the Placa Reial.  The Placa was huge, and lined entirely with restaurants and bars.  I saw a group of acrobats in the Placa doing gymnastic runs and pyramids.  This reminded me that I read that there is a local custom of doing large human pyramids with little children on top.

We made our way to Las Ramblas which reminded me of the Strip in Las Vegas.  There seemed to be a lot of drunk teens from everywhere - Europe, USA, etc. Yech to that part.  We came out the top of Las Ramblas into the Placa de Catalunya.  I guess we were getting tired (my feet were hurting) and were so disoriented that we couldn't figure out how to get to the road to walk back to the hotel.  Neil convinced me to get on the Metro.  That worked perfectly and we were back in no time.

Today was the beginning St John's festival, which is the midsummer night celebration. The hotel clerk told us that tomorrow is a city holiday.  Several times on our walk today, we saw (and heard) kids lighting firecrackers.  When we got to our room, it was just boom! boom! boom! At first we were worried that the noise was coming from cans being moved in the alley below our window and would be an ongoing problem, but were relieved when we realized it was just fireworks.