My family is originally from Catalonia, or as my great grandfather would have said Catalunya. And believe it or not until a couple weeks ago I hadn’t been in any city within the region. So I had to do something about that and what better place to change that embarrassing situation than going to Barcelona for a weekend.
Las Ramblas
The city is amazing, an architectural gem, superb food, excellent night life, and the relax of the Mediterranean Sea. The places to visit are Gaudi’s masterpieces La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Casa Mila (La Pedrera), and Casa Batllo. Also Carrer del Bisbe in the Gothic Quarter, Arc de Triomf, Columbus Monument, Las Ramblas, also you can pass by La Boqueria market or even better having a sunbath in Barceloneta or Bogatell.
Park Guell
Casa Mila "La Pedrera"
Casa Batllo
La Sagrada Familia
But I couldn’t only do sightseeing I had to enjoy the local cuisine, so I ate as many montados as I could, and went to different places to try the food. For the ones that doesn’t know what is a montado, is basically a kind of tapa with bread and on top anything from shrimps, txistorras, to a classic portion of tortilla.
Montados
This time I didn’t do any research so I had no idea, but my friend Armando had the Lonely Planet Guide, which we nicknamed it “El Pana Lonely” (Pana is kind of slang for friend or mate in Venezuela) so we gave our luck to the our new “Pana” and went to our first gastro-experience.
First Catalonian experience: A Bigger Fish To Fry
Armando was looking for a place in the Gothic quarter he had been before, and he was almost sure that Bar Celta Pulperia was the one. So we arrived to the place which obviously wasn’t the one, but we were so hungry that we didn’t give importance and it was a good test for our “Pana Lonely”.
Bar Celta, you might have a tapa of octopus Paul
The place was a tapas seafood restaurant, a kind of small place, with a huge bar, to have a caña (very small pint) and eat any kind of fried seafood. So we got fried crab, fried squid, and finally a Spanish tortilla. The food was good, the beer cold, and the price reasonable. Good start but not the brightest tapas in Barcelona to be honest, simple fried seafood food, but pretty sure there were better options around the area.
Caña in the bar
Tortilla
Fried seafood
More fried seafood
Barcelona reminds me the Seinfeld episode “The Hot Tub”.
Jerry: Feel much better here at my home base, Jean-Paul. It's a controlled environment.
Jean-Paul: It's a marathon, you know. 26 miles! I need to get some sleep!
Jerry: Hey, believe me, if I'd been with you there in Barcelona, you'd be polishing that medal right now.
Jean-Paul: Left a comfortable hotel bedroom for this!
Jerry: That wake-up guy was trouble!
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