I'd made a mistake about my arrival date, and our friends Dave and Denise had their flight delayed, so Sarah ended up spending one more day alone in Barcelona, but by Wednesday afternoon we were all reunited.
Dave and Denise are just as much beer lovers as I am, so we spent a fair bit of our time in Barcelona checking out brewpubs and beer bars. The first night these included the conveniently close Black Lab brewpub and an eclectically decorated pub around the corner that served their own very good Irish stout. Other memorable beer moments included a venerable hole in the wall bar/bottle shop where I had a Sherry barrel barleywine (it wasn't entirely clear whether the papery oxidation flavour came from actual oxidation or from the sherry barrel). We had a CGA, a Catalunyan Grape Ale, made with a blend of wort and grape must. We visited a great brew bar where we spent a late Saturday night with tapas and a huge selection of fun Spanish (and Belgian) brews, and the fabulous Garage Brewery tasting room, where all the beers were spot on interpretations of new world styles and the Naxos (nachos) were pretty good too.
Unsurprisingly in a city like Barcelona, the good food and drink didn't end with the brewpubs (indeed, barely got started there).
A lot of the best stuff was crammed in to one big afternoon and evening with Sarah's friend Miguel, whom she had met while on holiday in the Philippines. Miguel gave us a food and drink tour de force of the city. We met in a very old fashioned Barca Vermut (Vermouth) bar. Before Miguel even arrived we'd ordered two half litres of red Vermouth. It was sweet, bitter, herbal and vaguely medicinal. Kind of like a toned down version of the German herbal liqueurs we've drunk in Munich with Sarah's family-in-law. But served in a small tall glass with an olive on a stick and much (dangerously even) easier to drink.
Following this, Miguel gave us a tour of his neighbourhood, Gracia, as we wandered to lunch. For lunch we started our with cava (Spanish sparkling wine), deep fried artichoke chips and (soft, delicious) calamari before moving on to two different paellas: a classic Valencian version with rabbit, chicken and rice rich with broth and perfectly al dente; and a wetter, almost stew like seafood one with sauce to be sopped up with fresh bread. And just to finish it off, small glasses of Patxaran, sloe berry and cinnamon flavoured liqueur from the Basque country.
That left us feeling stuffed full, but it was only 17:30 (an entirely appropriate time to be finishing a Spanish lunch) and the whole evening lay before us. As dusk fell Miguel toured us around the city, showing off some of its more prominent modernist architectural gems. These included Gaudi's famous La Pedrera and several slightly less wild-eyed examples, including a spectacular old residence that's was preserved as it was converted into its present use, a retail clothing store.
As we approached the medieval city we ducked into a popular new bar called Spritz that served, you guessed it, Cava spiked with an assortment of herbal apertifs including Aperol, Campari and (probably my favourite), a bitingly bitter artichoke based concoction called Cynar. A couple of sptritzes and then we carried on our tour of ancient Barcelona, popping into another old-style vermouth bar just inside the ancient Roman gates. One final stop for a late night dinner and it was (finally!) time for bed.
Aside from our time with Miguel we ate plenty of tapas on our own, with favourites including pimentos padron (roasted or shallow fried small ever so slightly spicy green peppers), plates of dry Spanish ham and of course, Patatas Bravas, fried chunks of potato accompanied by a spicy sauce.
At home we cooked ourselves a couple more great meals: a huge pile of mushrooms fried in butter with baguettes and cured meats, and later butter fried cauliflower with paprika and charred cauliflower leaves with pesto sauce. These were accompanied by bottles of good and very cheap Spanish wines (usually Cava or big fruity reds).
And of course, Barcelona being one of Europe's most scenic cities we did plenty of actual sightseeing outside of (or at least only loosely connected to) our food and drink touring.
We visited the famous La Boqueria market just off Las Ramblas. It was pretty, but too full of takeaway stuff (fruit cups, cones of sliced meat, etc.) In fact, while the other markets we visited were better in this respect, they all seemed a bit too brightly lit, a bit too spotlessly sterile, a bit too sedate for my tastes. Toronto's St. Lawrence market or Melbourne's Victoria market have more appeal to me than most of them did. Though I'll admit that the full legs of dried ham sitting on rotating spits, ready for hand shaving were pretty cool (and very yummy).
We visited the famous Parc Guell. Even without paying for the Monumental area an just enjoying the park itself, the architecture and surroundings were pretty cool. Though what held our attention longest was a train of maybe fifty caterpillars making their way, nose to tail, down a set of stairs. Not only was it an unusual sight, you couldn't help but get excited and nervous for the little guys, especially given the number of squashed ones we saw elsewhere in the park.
We took a few walks through the Gotik (medieval) quarter, the very narrow, winding laneways surrounded by five to eight story buildings keep it cool and give it a mysterious air, even at noon on a sunny day. Meanwhile in the nearby Plaza Catedral, pushy buskers and salespeople try to squeeze money out of anyone passing by, while garishly dresses pickpockets turn conventional wisdom on its head and try to find their openings by being OVER-, not IN-conspicuous.
Heading back into the more modern part of town were the victory arch and the city's main thoroughfare, Las Ramblas which it seems is the fashionable place to take your pet roller suitcase for a walk. The whole beautifully tree lined central boulevard was just jammed with tourists clattering their way along the cobbles.
A (slightly) surprising highlight was the Fundacion Joan Miro museum. I've always kinda liked Miro, but this museum gave me a much better appreciation for the breadth of his work. Everything from early impressionist and cubist works through the abstract paintings and sculpture. My favourite bit of Miro in the museum was the video that showed him as an old man wandering around his garden, smiling broadly as he burned holes in and played with his canvases.
That said, my two very favourite bits weren't Miro at all. The first was the interactive area in the basement, where Sarah, Dave, Denise and I played with paper, glue, tape and coloured pencils making our own works in a way I've rarely done since I was in school. But best of all was the fountain upstairs, enclosed in glass that ran silver not with water, but mercury! Constructed by Miro's friend Alexander Calder, it was a gift to the foundation. It was mesmerising to watch, and to contemplate as well. Imagine designing a pump to pump a liquid more than ten times the density of water!
All of it was wrapped up in a surprisingly attractive (for 1960s concrete) building painted white sitting high above the city with expansive views out over it.
From there (and just about anywhere with a view over the city) you could see the spot generally regarded as THE premier attraction in Barcelona: the Antonio Gaudi designed Sagrada Familia basilica (NOT, as Miguel and others kept reminding us, a cathedral, as it's not the seat of a bishop). In fact, the incredible flowing structure was only consecrated as a place of worship in 2015XCC, one hundred years after it was started. So popular is it that tickets are a minimum of 17 Euros each and must be booked in advance for entry to the basilica during a specific 30 minute window. But the amazing architecture, that many say looks like it was grown as much as built, was pretty amazing. And the museum beneath the main hall was pretty cool as well, with lots of info about its history, including stuff about the original, pre-Gaudi design and how work continued following his death (in a tram accident in 1926).
I'll let the photos of the basilica do most of the talking, but one other interesting thing we learned was that a much of the statuary outside was based on plaster casts of the actual subjects, including chickens and stillborn babies.
Our whole time in Barcelona was a joy. After our first day I couldn't see why people describe it as their favourite city in the world. But after a few days I'd begun to understand. It's beautiful and lively with tons to do. Great food, diverse populace... But as fabulous as the city was perhaps the very best bit was seeing our friends Dave and Denise for the first time in years (and having sleepovers in our four bed dorm every night). Hopefully it won't be too much longer 'til we see them back in NZ again.
Post Script: Sarah's five favourite fuzzy things in Barcelona:
- The furry blue graffiti monster near our hostel
- The parade of caterpillars in Parc Guell
- The many (many) pugs we saw
- A small white dog that was basically a big unit of fluff with no discernible front or back
- Just squeaking in at number five, me.
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