Barcelona, Spain - Day 1

     We caught a taxi into Barcelona on Saturday morning to the Plaza España. The taxi driver was nice enough to point out that the Plaza de Toros(Bullring) had been turned into a shopping mall. What a middle finger to Spain from Catalunya and their ever continuing effort to not be Spanish. They also passed a law prohibiting bullfights. The mall also came equipped with a tower to go up and get a great view of the city. Instead, we had a coffee at a local cafe and ventured over to the gay pride festival to see what was going on. Saturday was the day for lots of sports activities for kids.

     Afterwards, we made our best investment of the trip and bought a 2 day pass for the bus and subway. We went to the Casa Batlló, designed by Antoní Gaudí. It's an old house that he was commissioned to renovate in a new and modern way. He took lots of inspiration from nature and designed the outside of the house to look like a dragon. The inside has many interesting touches that create the sense of being inside a living creature. The walls are designed to look like scales and the handrails of the staircases look like vertebrae. The most spectacular part is the roof, where he designed the chimneys to look like the back and tail of the dragon. The view of the city is nice too.

      We went in search of a non existent burger place for lunch we had heard about. It sounded amazing but in the end, we just went to a run of the mill Spanish restaurant. We took a long break from the heat and the girls went shopping for some clothes. Then, we tried the Sagrada Familia but the line was long and we only would have been able to go in for a half hour. This did not satisfy our time for price value so we decided to try the next day and go on to La Rambla. On our way, we passed the Arc de Triomphe.

     La Rambla is a long stretch of street that reaches from the Plaza Catalunya to Barceloneta, the small beach town. It's full of restaurants, tourist shops, and lots of pickpockets. If there is any place in Barcelona where you run the risk of being picked, its on La Rambla. There are also other clever games in which people appear to be participating in betting on which cup the ball is under. They go back and forth winning and losing but the trick is that they are part of the group trying to con people out of money. Another great place to visit on La Rambla is the famous Mercat de la Boquería. It seemed that every other stand offered an over priced fruit smoothie full of fruit seeds and no delicious juice. We tried one of course and it was not good. We also made the mistake of going to the first stall in the market and realized how much we overpaid after we saw them for half the price at other places. Oh well. We made up for it by buying some fruit for snacks later.

     From the market, we went down to the harbor near Barceloneta so Izzy's parents could see the boats. They love boats and all things boat related so it was like heaven for them. We took some pictures of them by the boats and wandered around the marina checking out the sites. There were a ton of people out doing the same thing and enjoying the end of the day. The old customs building is right by the harbor and is magnificent. There's also a statue of Christopher Columbus "pointing to the new world" or Italy and Greece in reality. Later, we met a friend of Izzy's for a while and had a drink to catch up. It was a great day.

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Eastern Spain

     This is the Spain we love. And discovering it is even more fun. We have some visitors with us for this trip, Izzy's parents. We picked them up from the airport Friday morning and headed east to Barcelona. Our goal is to visit the provinces of northern Spain during the next two weeks and we've decided to start in Catalunya.

     Our first stop was in the small town Santa María de Huerta. We pulled in to see the Monastery advertised on the highway signs. The town is tiny and we arrived during the siesta so no one was about except the handful of people at a local cafe. We couldn't go in the Monastery because they too were on siesta and had closed the doors so we had to settle for walking around the courtyard. There we saw an old cemetery and met a drifter who was going to Zaragoza for work. He showed us his room and the bathroom and told us of how he was staying for the night in the Monastery until he could get on to Zaragoza. He later told us of how he believes the church is like the mafia. Interesting that he likes to bite the hand that feeds him. We bid him farewell and headed on to the Stone Monastery a few more miles down the road.

     We carefully mulled our decision of whether to pay the fee to enter the trail walk and monastery. Finally, Izzy's dad said they hadn't come this far not to see it so why the hell not. We agreed and went in. The walk through the forest is incredible. The first thing we noticed was the coolness in the forest, a much welcome break from the scorching heat of Spain's summer(over 100(that's 39 for you Celsius lovers) this weekend in Madrid). The forest here is dotted with streams and waterfalls and all kinds of rushing water. 

     We found waterfall...

     After waterfall...

     After waterfall...

     After waterfall in this place. And the sound of the rushing water is so relaxing. It got to me to wondering how a small oasis existed in this part of the country because the entire ride before and after, I stared at a landscape that looked like a desert planet out of a Star Wars movie.

     This part of the trail we didn't walk because we felt we'd put the old man through enough so we headed on to the Monastery. It was built over a 23 year period starting in 1185. The monks that lived there were some of the first in Europe to make chocolate. The lovely candy we enjoy today came from the Americas and was written about by Cortés when he conquered Mexico. Columbus brought it back and the friars at this Monastery began cooking and experimenting with different recipes of chocolate.

     There was also a large Wine Museum where we learned a lesson we keep learning in Europe. They don't hire the right people to translate important things and plugging things into a computer translator isn't the way to go. Because of this, we learned that "mosto" or grape juice becomes wine. Except they didn't translate it as such. The plaque read that must becomes wine. Oh well. We hope our generation of kids will learn better than their predecessors. There is an open air cathedral in the Monastery. The open air bit is mainly due to it falling apart but it adds a certain oneness with nature and faith that other churches just can't offer.

     We finally arrived in Barcelona late Friday night and spent the next day roaming around the city. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

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