Month: October 2019

Sunday was getaway day, but we wanted to squeeze in some last memories of our beloved Barcelona.

First, of course, was brunch and Bloody Marys at Milk. It’s a short two-block walk from our apartment, so we left at 9:25 a.m. We arrived at about 9:30 a.m. to find no line and in fact tables available and an empty bar beckoning to us. (This is why we love this location so much.)  We watched our bartender make those delicious breakfast cocktails exactly the same as three years ago and exactly the same as I had learned then. They were exactly as delicious.

As so was the Eggs Benedict, served over locally sourced sourdough bread slices. Milk’s bacon, like most in Europe, is thick and more flavorful than what we are accustomed to in the U.S. One of the advantages of sitting at the bar is that you get to watch the show of making the drinks and preparing the dishes in the kitchen. They keep a pot of water simmering on the stove ready to drop an egg in for poaching. Our two orders came out quickly and expeditiously served  with delicious potatoes and a salad, the last of which I didn’t need or want for brunch.

As like most European restaurants, Milk takes your order immediately after you sit down and serves you within another few minutes, then lets you take all the time in the world before presenting the check. We were happy to eat and linger over the best Bloody Marys in Europe. (Which, by the way, I learned their recipe three years ago and fix at home now.)

Last brunch done, we then repaired to our apartment for a quick late morning respite and then off to Casa Vicens, Gaudi’s very first residential design.

The house is located in what used to be the countryside of Barcelona, designed to be the Vicens family summer home surrounded by gardens. Remarkably, it remained in the ownership of only two families until 2014 when it was taken over by a local bank, renovated and opened as a Gaudi museum only in 2017. That’s why we had never seen the place in our previous visits.

Casa Vicens is a visual treat, as are all Gaudi creations. The foundation has restored the home, which was expanded and extensively modified over the years, to its original splendor as designed for the Vicens family in 1885.

The “new” section of the house, contracted in 1925 and designed by a friend of Gaudi’s (he was too occupied with Sagrada Familia at the time), has been renovated into a gallery displaying models and videos of late 19th century and early 20th century architecture. Together with the restored original Vicens home, the visit is a treat, one that is well worth the effort to get there on the V17 bus, even when it runs only every 20 minutes or so on a Sunday.

We bought a 2020 Gaudi calendar at the shop to hang in our house, the first non-sailing wall calendar I think we have ever used. But it will recall Gaudi’s wonderful architecture for the year ahead in our kitchen.

After a half-hour wait for the V17 bus, we rode home in mid-afternoon to start packing for the trip back home. But wait. There was still some time for a late walk in Barcelona.

So off we went to the tents along the waterfront and Barceloneta and the Fastnet bar. One last empanada from a street vendor, one last beer in Fastnet and best wishes for the bartender there, who actually remembered that I had purchased a t-shirt earlier in our stay. I will wear it proudly back in the U.S.

But now it was time to head back to the apartment for our last dinner and a farewell to Barcelona. We had wine to consume. Otherwise it would be left behind for the cleaning crew.

 

 

No trip to Barcelona is complete without a visit to Mont Juic. The history of this city is pretty much contained on this mountain overlooking the Mediterranean.

To get to the very top where the fortress stands (or what’s left of it), requires a funicular ride followed by a gondola ride. The funicular is part of TMB, Barcelona’s transit system, so we could use our 10-ride ticket. The gondola up the second half of the mountain to the fort is a separate 8.70 euro ticket. But worth every penny for the views of Barcelona below.

The gondola deposits passengers at the summit, right at the entrance to the fortress. We didn’t really need to pay another ticket to go into the fort, since we had already been there, but a walk around the place is always fun. The archery club gathers to fire arrows at a series of targets in what used to be the moat of the castle. Around the bend was another group playing a version of tennis against the ancient walls of the fort.

After a bit of confusion about where to find the path (just follow the cars!), we started down the mountain toward the Olympic complex, past the impressive Joan Miro museum and on to the stadium, which is still used for major sports events.

It’s a fairly long walk from the top, and Lynn and I were communicating on two different frequencies. She wanted to walk down the rest of the mountain through the series of gardens and fountains, and I wanted to walk down the Olympic steps past the columns honoring the foundation of the European Union, which took place on that site.

We took the Olympic path, which deposited us on a street that winds down the side of the mountain past a folklore museum not worth entering if it were free (it’s not). By now, we had descended most of the way down the mountain, but still had a long way to walk, so we found a bus stop for the last several hundred meters to Plaça Espana, site of many of the demonstrations. Lynn was nervous, but we were able to get to the Metro station only yards away without seeing any signs of civil unrest.

We ducked into the Metro to catch the L3 back to La Rambla and a pleasant walk home. It was the warmest day we had experienced in Barcelona and the warmest since Florence last month. Drinks at Penny Banger were a must. Dinner at Sensi Bistro awaited.

 

Barcelona has witnessed a week of massive demonstrations, many of which turned violent late at night, culminating in a general strike Friday. Catalans are demonstrating for independence from Spain (I feel your pain, brothers, but it just won’t happen) and protesting harsh jail sentences meted out to several legislators who voted for secession (stupid Spanish government: now they are political prisoners and martyrs to the cause).

Unfortunately, the nexus of most demonstrations has been exactly where we wanted to go, Gaudi’s Casa Batllo on tony Passeig de Gracia in the heart of Barcelona.

Nervous but committed, we purchased tickets for a morning visit, hoping that the demonstrations would not begin until later in the day. Most demonstrators we have seen are fairly young, predominantly college age, so they don’t get up early. Most Spanish people of any age don’t either, but we were more concerned about the Metro running on any sort of schedule. It turned out the Metro was running, although not as frequently on this day of the general strike.

In fact, the atmosphere in the morning was spooky quiet. Apparently many people stayed home from work to avoid transit delays, and a number of stores in and around the old town stayed closed all day including tragically, one of our favorite bars, Penny Banger. (The bartender told us the next day that they remained closed to support the strike.)

This is serious stuff. Although most of the youthful demonstrators are peaceful and committed to Catalan independence, there are a small number of masked anarchists following the protests who are bent on destruction and vandalism, setting fires and throwing objects at police. (They battled in the streets all night long Friday).

Our Metro ran a bit slower than usual, but we came out on Passieg de Gracia in plenty of time for our scheduled ticket. The guard let us right in, as there was no line, so we started out tour some 45 minutes early.

Casa Batllo is a wonder of Gaudi architecture, as just about all of his works are. What makes Casa Batllo truly unusual is that Gaudi did not design the building from scratch. He recommended to the owner Sr. Batllo that he could renovate the existing building in his own vision. Luckily for both Gaudi and his patron, obviously there was no HDLC in those days.

The result is stunning. Even though we had seen Casa Batllo previously, it is still a wonder to view, especially with the augmented reality AV guide given out at the start.

Remarkably, Casa Batllo is still a functioning home with apartments on the upper floors. The place is self-sufficient with no funding from government or non-profits, as we could see on the rooftop, which is set up with lights and speakers for private functions.

We spent a little more than an hour in Casa Batllo, always checking the street below for any signs of crowds gathering into organized protests. By the time we were ready to leave, Passeig Gracia was still quiet, buzzing with tourists and shoppers for the high end stores along the street.

But we could sense that something was different. The atmosphere was abnormally quiet, except for the pulsating sound of the police helicopter hovering above the city center all day long. Car and bus traffic was a fraction of the norm. Police from at least three different jurisdictions were stationed all over the place. There was a pervasive sense of waiting for something.

We hustled down the Metro station right in front of Casa Batllo and made our way back to Barri Gotic, emerging from the L4 line at the Jaume I station, which has also been a center of demonstration activity and late night violence along Via Laeitana. We could see way up the street a mass of people behind a phalanx of black police vans with blue lights flashing.

The demonstrations were approaching. They would eventually pull together half a million people from all over the region during the day peacefully protesting and a few hundred later at night throwing rocks, acid and street signs at the police and torching the large city trash bins that line the streets.

Meanwhile, we scurried into Barri Gotic in search of a little lunch place we remembered liking located on Plaça George Orwell. Los Bahia is a nondescript neighborhood diner that we stumbled into a few years ago and discovered they make a mighty fine dish of chorizo sausage in cider and excellent patatas bravas. We were a few minutes too early, as the cook doesn’t show up until noon, so we waited with two beers until she reported for duty. A few minutes later, we were enjoying our chorizo, potatoes and and extra order of grilled vegetables. For a little nondescript diner, Los Bahia is one fine place to have lunch.

And then it was back again across Via Laietana to the Santa Caterina market to pick up provisions for dinner at home. The market was very definitely less attended and less staffed than usual for a Friday (or any day of the week, for that matter). Many of the stalls were empty and closed. The aisles were devoid of tourists (most don’t go here anyway) and short of regular customers. Even the restaurants lining the perimeter were far less than full, very unusual for a Friday (or any day of the week, for that matter).

We found the cube steak on skewers that we were seeking, and the pleasant matron tending the stall seemed very pleased that we had chosen the piquant marinade instead of the other, more Asian flavors. She boxed up our skewers with engaging enthusiasm and charged all of 6.09 euros for what would cost twice as much at home. The vegetables would cost slightly more than that.

By now it was mid-afternoon, and small crowds were milling about all the squares we walked through, mostly young, college age people playing cards, smoking and seeming to have a good time waiting for the main event to begin. We older folks hustled home, and along the way checked out Penny Banger, our favorite genuine Irish pub. Alas, it was closed, along with the entire building, which is mostly occupied by the marijuana museum next door.

By now, we could hear the constant blare of police sirens and the helicopter overhead. The main event was nearing.

Later in the evening after dinner, we found a TV station broadcasting live from the scene showing video of the masked anarchist hoodlums only blocks from our apartment, while a half a million peaceful demonstrators protested for Catalan independence about a half a mile away. The peaceful protests would end in the evening. The violence went on until early morning.

But all stayed quiet on Passeig Colom in front of our apartment and across from the nine-figure mega-yachts parked in the marina. And dinner was delicious.

 

We had passed by the church of Santa Maria del Mar in El Born any number of times over the years, yet never walked in. From the street, it is just a massive, unobtrusive stone wall similar to so many around the old parts of Barcelona. On this day, we decided to stick our heads in and discovered a magnificent Gothic church that has stood on this site since 1384 after construction began as early as 1329. They took their time building this monumental edifice.

The church suffered over the centuries due to the usual reasons of war, pestilence, revolutions and general neglect. But its greatest tragedy befell it in July, 1936, when it was set ablaze for 11 full days during the Spanish Civil War. The fire consumed everything in Santa Maria del Mar–altar, art and archives–sparing only the walls and a few stained glass window at the very highest levels where the fire could not reach.

Some 80 years later, Santa Maria del Mar has regained a good bit of its grandeur, but none of its art. The side chapels are all fairly plain and devoid of decoration.

One chapel is devoted to St. Ignatius, the founder of the Jesuit order who is depicted in a fairly modern bronze statue. Still, the soaring glass windows are worth a visit, as this too is a dedicated cathedral and has the requisite beggars at each entrance.

After our visit to Santa Maria del Mar in El Born, we walked a few blocks over to Barri Gotic and the Cathedral of Barcelona, the official seat of the Catholic church here. Whatever ornamentation is lacking in Santa Maria del Mar, the Barcelona Cathedral makes up for it in Gothic and Baroque splendor.

The records of a diocese in Barcelona go back to 343 AD, and recent excavations near the site show that a church existed there in the fourth century. That early church housed the relics of Saint Eulalia in one of its chapels, squirreled away to avoid the Arab invaders in 711. In 877 the remains were “miraculously” discovered at  Santa María del Mar, according to the official histtory of the Barcelona Cathedral.

The present neo-Gothic cathedral stands on the foundations of the original fourth-century church and the subsequent Romanesque cathedral that was consecrated in 1058, eight years before William of Normandy conquered England. Construction of the present cathedral began in 1298 and preceded at its own leisurely pace for the next 150 years until the cloister was completed in 1448.

However, the two side towers and the current facade were not completed until 1913, funded by Barcelona industrialist Manuel Girona Agrafel and his family.

Inside, the crypt of St. Eulalia stands right in front of the altar, which itself is at the head of the huge central choir stall. No fewer than 140 images, statues and devotions are on display to the Virgin Mary in the side altars that line the nave of the church, all of which compete with each other for gilded ornamentation.

Outside in the cloister is a pond and fountain, home of 13 honking geese said to represent the age of St. Eulalia when she was martyred. For more, the cathedral has a very informative web site at www.catedralbcn.org.

Although we had seen the cathedral before, it still impresses. It’s not Notre Dame or St. Denis, but still the most beautiful we have seen in Spain.

Churches seen it was off to our first feast of the day, lunch at Royal Barcelona Yacht Club. Club officials were quite gracious to give me a reservation after I contacted them and presented a letter of introduction. The club stands along the marina and seems to own at least two long slips in addition to a boat yard and a separate dry storage.

This is Spain–lunch does not start until 1:30, so we were there a few minutes early, although not the first to sit in the spacious dining room. The interior of RCNB resembles Royal Thames, with a polished wood decor that seems to date to the early 70s.

The regular daily specials on the menu seemed to include three courses, plus wine, water and bread. I ordered the two items listed most prominently on the menu, the gazpacho and the rice for my entree. Lynn chose the caprese salad and the simple baked chicken with potatoes. Here mozzarella was fluffy in texture surrounded by fresh tomatoes swimming in delicious olive oil. The waiter asked for our wine selections, poured the first glasses, and left the bottles on the table for us to enjoy. And we did.

My gazpacho was the best I have ever enjoyed, creamy and rich with flavor. I assumed the main course would be a small dish like we have as the Sailor’s Special at SYC. I was wrong.

My rice dish came out as a huge two-foot-wide platter of paella, complete with shrimp, prawns, mussels and clams. As seafood jambalaya goes, it was pretty good and incredibly filling. Our waiter seemed astonished that I did not want to eat the entire pan. We gorged.

And then came the dessert cart. Actually, carts–there are two. That was part of the lunch too. We chose the lightest thing we could see, a large slice of lemon icebox pie topped by four inches of meringue. It tasted for all the world like Key Lime pie. Of course, we could not refuse coffee, which was nothing short of delicious.

After an hour and a half of dining, we paid what turned out to be a hefty bill and forced ourselves away from the table to waddle back to the apartment and a much needed nap before dinner.

We needed to rest, because dinner was scheduled in just a few hours. We had overbooked ourselves to overeat, and Lynn wanted to consider canceling our reservation at Los Caracoles, a restaurant that has been in operation since 1835. In retrospect, we should have.

We have endured this experience before, inevitably to our regret. Los Caracoles (the snails), is a tired old place with a tired old menu. Like most of this type of ancient restaurant, it is very large, divided into many dining rooms on many levels. We ordered the namesake snails, which came out in minutes, indicating they keep them in a pot stewing all night long. The serving included more than 30 snails, which we picked out with toothpicks. The restaurant kindly offered lemon water to rinse our gravy covered fingers, as Lynn scolded me for licking. The snails were very savory and rich, regardless.

Our main courses were oxtail for me and baked chicken for Lynn. Both appeared again in minutes, because the oxtail is kept stewing in a big pot until it is ladled over a disc of mashed potatoes. Lynn’s baked chicken–an entire half–came from a rotisserie that can be seen from the street. Both dishes were fine, if not special. In fact, dull. Lynn picked at her chicken, then asked to take the majority home. It would become dinner on our last night Sunday before flying home Monday morning (we hope, considering what is going on around us in Barcelona).

 

 

In researching new things to do in Barcelona, Lynn found an interesting wine tasting trip that included a sailboat ride to a small village just north of Barcelona. Of course, we booked passage. What could be better–a sail up the coast and a wine tasting up the mountains?

Our boat left from Olympic Marina, which is about a mile and a half from our apartment. We took the #59 bus, even though we could have walked. The bus dropped us off several blocks from the marina, so we wound up walking quite a ways anyway, especially since we missed the tour desk and walked all the way around the restaurants that line Olympic Marina.

Finally in the right place, we learned that half our group would go over to the winery in a van and return by boat, while half would go by boat and return by van. We hoped to be in the latter group and were delighted to learn that we were. Our group consisted of four couples, the three others from Indianapolis, Long Island and Sydney, Australia. They all turned out to be interesting folks and good company. Our skipper helped everyone board our beautiful Bavaria 46 and off we went, motoring into the calm Mediterranean.

About halfway along the short trip, our skipper went below and offered drinks to everyone, including beers, which we eagerly accepted. Beer and sailboats just go together, even when motoring to a wine tasting.

Our skipper was an interesting young man of about 40 who lives several miles up the coast between Barcelona and Gerona. He is a professional mariner who had grown up sailing since he was 6 years old, starting in Optimists, then graduating to Lasers, 420s and J-80s. He said as he got older, he realized he was very good but not quite at the level where he could make a living racing. So he got his master’s license and became a professional mariner, delivering boats all over the Med.

Our trip up the coast took about 90 minutes across beautiful water and great views of Barcelona and its northern suburbs. We pulled into the marina at Port Masnou for the short ride to the village named Alella up in the hills. At the Bouquet Winery our guide greeted us and gave us one of the shortest tours of a winery ever. This place was quite small, producing only 25,000 bottles a year, so the tour was more or less confined to one room. But our guide was most informative about the process from growing the grapes all the way to bottling the product.

In fact, Alella is its own DOC, the smallest in all of Spain, she explained. The land and house have been in the same family for more than 300 years but did not always operate as a winery until the most recent generation replanted and is rebuilding the wine making tradition at the estate.

After the short tour of the premises, she invited us to sit at a table under an awning to taste four different wines they produce. All were excellent, and our hostess took us through the process of sight, smell and taste of the wines. Lynn liked the first one the best, what the winery calls Blanc.

As we tasted, we also ate cheese, ham and made “tomato bread” for ourselves by squeezing fresh cut tomatoes over the large slices of a rustic loaf. Since we had not eaten anything all day, our light lunch was most welcome.

After about an hour at the winery, our van driver pulled up to take us back to Barcelona. In retrospect, we probably got the better part of the trip, as the other group that returned to Barcelona by boat likely faced fresh breezes mostly upwind.

Returning to Olympic Marina, we walked back to our apartment along the beach lined with blankets, shit-sellers and elaborate sand castles, accompanied by our Australia wine tasting companions. It was a most pleasant way to end a most pleasant day.

No matter how many times we have seen it, when we walk into this wonder of the world, tears come to our eyes. Nothing can quite prepare you for the light show that is Sagrada Familia.

The ticketing and entry process has changed in the last few years, due no doubt to the increasing demand. It’s much more sophisticated, yet simple at the same time.

While thousands of people stand across the street and walk around the perimeter of the church, thousands more line up to enter.

Tickets are now exclusively online and timed for every 15 minutes. We had ordered ours two days earlier directly from the official Sagrada Familia web site, which is the least expensive, since there is no third-party markup. And you can be comfortable knowing that all of your funds are going straight to Sagrada Familia to support the building project, scheduled to be completed in 2026, the centennial of Gaudi’s tragic death.

We arrived early, so we could scout out the ticketing and entry process, which is not particularly evident while walking the streets. Once we learned the drill, we were able to join the crowds gazing in awe from outside. Since we had time, and were a bit hungry, we found a little tapas restaurant around the corner from the teeming crowds and American fast food chains that line the street across from Sagrada Familia.

Aitor offers a regular menu, but its speciality is a self-service line of bruschettas topped with all sorts of  meats, seafoods, vegetables and dips. For 1.60 euro each.

I grabbed an anchovy and a sliced sausage, while Lynn chose a ham and cheese.  We both downed a cold beer and cheerfully paid our 8.80 before walking out to brave the lines at Sagrada Familia.

There actually was not that much go brave, because they are so organized. We joined the line for our 12:30 p.m. entry and moved right through into security, which is more stringent than TSA. I had to remove my belt, everything in my pockets and even my watch. They don’t mess around, no doubt figuring that Sagrada Familia could be a prime target for infidels who want to make a statement about their religion.

So far we had shown our tickets twice, once to get in and once at security. We had to present them a third time to walk through the entrance to the plaza in front of the Nativity facade, then show our tickets once again to claim our audio guides for a total of four ticket showings before starting the tour.

The audio guides contain seven main chapters, three of which play before you even enter the Nativity doors. This is another method of restricting entry so the interior of the basilica does not get too crowded. It all works.

And then you walk through and see the light.

No photo can adequately depict the effect that Gaudi created with stained glass windows corresponding to the time of the day and the position of the sun. The columns supporting the structure are in the shape of trees, reflecting Gaudi’s love of nature. They are all topped with medallions representing the four Evangelists and various major Biblical figures. The crowds mill about listening to the audio guides, staring up at the soaring ceiling and shuffling from station to station throughout the mostly empty space.

A couple of oddities about Sagrada Familia:

• The altar is extremely simple and bare, just a large block of stone. Perhaps something more elaborate and Gaudi-like will take its place in the next six years. It’s hard to imagine that Gaudi, whose attention to detail was legendary, did not envision a more fitting altar for his masterpiece.
• It was not until 2010 that Pope Benedict consecrated Sagrada Familia as a church and minor basilica. That was when the interior was considered finished enough to function as a church.

One suggestion to the Sagrada Familia paterfamilia–ban backpacks. They take up space, and people wearing them have no sense of space themselves, swinging around to catch their views. And while they are at it, ban selfie sticks too.

The tour includes the Sacristy, where various items from the crypt are on display. Unfortunately, the crypt itself is not open to the public. This is the resting place of Gaudi, the only person entombed in the church.

The museum off to the side and below the main level of the church has been expanded and includes several newer exhibits that we had not seen before. But the architects’ workshop is still in place, although they were on lunch break when we visited. The museum now includes an interesting nine-minute video dubbed in English about the history, design and construction of Sagrada Familia, another new feature we had not seen in the past.

We came, we saw, we completed the tour. Then we went back in and did it again. As long as you don’t walk through the exit, you can walk back in the church as many times as you want. We will do it again in a few years to see the progress of the work. We might even be able to get back in 2026 to see the completion. Wouldn’t that be nice.

 

 

 

 

St. Antoni Market has been under construction and renovation for years. Our first apartment in Barcelona was directly across the street, so we had plenty of opportunity to gaze at it and wonder when it would be completed. A couple of years later the last time we visited and well past the projected opening date, St. Antoni was still not completed.

But now St. Antoni is finished and open, so we took the Metro to see the new place. It is very attractive on the outside, with its original 19th century exterior completely restored. Inside, St. Antoni is sleek and frankly a bit sterile. The food stalls are lined up in the center, and around the perimeter stand long lines of clothing markets. Early on a Monday morning, not all the food stalls were open, so the visual effect of sleek but sanitized gray metal walls was accentuated.

The food vendors offered the usual selections of meats, cheeses, vegetables, fruits and prepared foods but very little seafood, which is odd in a town on the ocean. Most of the larger seafood stalls were closed, probably because it was a Monday, and the fishers had not come back with their catches.

Who could  resist buying a cone of sliced meats? For two euros, they were irresistible. And mighty tasty. Even Lynn gave them a positive review.

Oddly, St. Antoni market also houses a full supermarket on the lower level under the main market. Really?

Although we had taken the Metro to St. Antoni in our old neighborhood, for old times sake, we decided to walk back to La Boqueria just off La Rambla to compare the markets. On the way, we stopped into a church that had once been the cathedral of Barcelona. Its interior looked vaguely Moorish, unusual in this part of Spain.

Onward we trekked to La Boqueria and the madness of La Rambla. Both lived up (down) to their reputations.

La Boqueria was so chock full of tourists, we could hardly move through the place, much less actually look at any wares. And the meat cones were twice as much.

We quickly squeezed our way out and walked right into equally suffocating crowds on La Rambla. A cruise ship must have landed and deposited every passenger right on the street. It was Mardi Gras-crowded without the fun, parades or beer. We worked our way across and out again into the much quieter Barri Gotic.

Then we crossed Barri Gotic to El Born and the Santa Catarina market, which had disappointed us on Saturday by being closed. But this Monday morning, Santa Catarina was open and doing a brisk business.

By now, it was lunchtime, so we found a counter where we enjoyed a most lovely lunch. Lynn ordered the hot chèvre salad, which the cook prepared by actually grilling the hockey puck sized slice of chèvre and ladling balsamic vinegar over the now melty cheese before placing it in its bed of lettuce and very large, very flavorful tomatoes.

My own order was a plate of delicious white anchovies swimming in that lemony olive oil that makes them so flavorful. I accompanied that with the house special of codfish croquettes with melted cheese right out of the fryer.

Later, after a much needed rest, we ventured forth to the Barceloneta market, only to find it closed, as it was after 3 p.m. when we arrived. No matter–we visited the next morning.

It was in full swing but much smaller than we had envisioned. Since we were on our way elsewhere, we stopped at the counter for a quick croissant breakfast before venturing off for Tuesday’s adventure.

Our circumnavigation of markets in our area was now complete.

 

We arrived at Milk on Sunday for brunch and Bloody Marys right about 9:30 a.m., too late to make the first seating, but early enough so we only had to wait about 10 minutes to be shown to a cushy, comfy corner seat.

Had we waited another 10 minutes, we would have been part of the large crowd standing in the street waiting for us and everyone else to finish before entering. Milk is not a secret.

The Bloody Marys were excellent as expected, and our Eggs Benedict dishes were equally good. And a bargain at 10.50 euros for a full meal, not including the drinks.

We drank, we ate, we departed so others could enjoy the atmosphere and flavors of Milk (which now has three sibling restaurants scattered around Barcelona). And there were plenty of others waiting their turn for us to leave.

Milk’s brunch is nothing if not nap-inducing, so after a proper rest we started out again, this time in the direction of the market tents along the Barceloneta side of the marina. (Where the really big boats are and where we will return the next day to document them.)

We walked into old Barceloneta to find Somerrostro and sign up for reservations to eat there Tuesday. As long as we were in the depths of Barceloneta, which itself is a very old neighborhood, we kept walking toward the beach to view the scene.

The blanket sellers were out in force, many more than the old shit-sellers peddling knock-offs of branded shoes, bags, sunglasses, watches and tchotchkes that we had seen in previous trips. Blankets for the beach are big now.

By now, the sun had broken out, and there is very little shade in the large plazas lining the beach, so we decided to retreat for some shade to the main avenue of Barceloneta. And perhaps a beer at Fastnet to slake the thirst of walking in the hot sun.

Fastnet was showing the Rugby World Cup, and the match at that time was Scotland vs. host Japan. Needless to say the crowd was nearly unanimously in favor of the Scots, who eventually lost long after we enjoyed a couple of cold ones before walking back home but not before I enjoyed a “piquant” hot dog at the little stand just outside the boat show and marina. Fastnet has lost none of its charm or cold beer since we were there last.

I could not resist buying a Fastnet employee t-shirt emblazoned on the front with the legend “The Peoples Republic of Barceloneta” to go along with my “Catalonia is Not Spain” shirt I had purchased years ago on La Rambla. Unfortunately, the next day demonstrations would break out all over town about that very issue. Anyway, I’m there for them.

Later that evening, Lynn was enthused about walking down to Flaherty’s Irish Bar in the Gothic Quarter for 7 p.m., where they claim to show NFL football live on their five screens. We had been assured earlier in the day that all five screens would be showing the NFL; what they did not say was whether those five screens would show five different games. When we arrived, we learned that the featured game this evening would be Cleveland against Seattle, not at all what we wanted to see. Three screens would show that game and two would show the Kansas City game. I was not about to suggest to the folks at Flaherty’s that they change the screens showing soccer to the American football game between Jacksonville and New Orleans.

Disappointed, we retreated to the apartment for dinner at home, which had been the original plan. Lynn expertly prepared sautéed mushrooms with pan seared entrecôte accompanied by a tart salad of tomato and cucumber, as I called the game from the ESPN app and nola.com tweets.

Both dinner and the game turned out to be quite good.

We didn’t particularly care for the atmosphere at Flaherty’s anyway. So there. Saints win!

Our departure from Nice was tinged with regret, because Nice is just such a wonderful place. On our last night, we bade our farewell to Giorgio, cooked our last meal at home and watched the party rage on late at Crespo’s Cave de Cours wine bar.

And then it was off Friday morning for the 15-minute, 35-euro ride to the Nice airport, the third busiest in France after the two in Paris. Our driver was ten minutes late, which was of no consequence, as we were extremely early. So early, in fact, that EZ Jet almost did not check our bags because we were one minute outside the two-hour time frame for check-in.

With all that time to kill, we found the airport’s Priority Lounge and enjoyed Bloody Marys (prepared by me in anticipation of Milk on Sunday) and some noshes before joining the throngs at the gate for the short but full flight to Barcelona. Sitting in from of us was a group of young men, one of whom had obviously lost a bet or was the subject of a bachelor trip, as he was dressed as the Cisco Kid, complete with huge sombrero. His six French companions did not let him forget his outfit the entire trip.

As soon as our taxi left the airport, we knew we were in a much larger city. Barcelona’s traffic is as bad an any major urban center’s. We crawled along the “freeway” until it was no longer a freeway at all as we entered the center of the city and began to recognize the buildings and neighborhoods we had visited before.

We walked into Friendly Apartments to register at 3 p.m., precisely their check-in time, which meant that we were not alone. Several other groups were clustered in the small waiting area, most of whom had checked in earlier but needed to get keys. Our progress was slow but reasonably efficient once it was our turn.

And then it was another short taxi ride to the Van Gogh apartment on Passeig Colomb overlooking the waterfront, where we looked out our window and saw–a boat show!

Unknowingly but luckily we had arrived on the weekend of the massive Barcelona Boat Show. It is at least as big as the Newport show, bigger than St. Petersburg and not much smaller than Annapolis. We would spend Saturday wandering the boats and toy tents between shopping for essentials like food, wine and paper towels.

So first thing Saturday morning (10 a.m. the way we roll), we set out across the street to redeem our previously purchased online tickets for analog wristbands and entry to the show that takes up two separate areas of the city’s marina complex across the street from each other.  After a couple of hours of boat-gazing, a few observations about the show:

• Electric boats are big. We saw a large number promoted obviously as eco-friendly, and a couple of electric engine booths in addition to Torqueedo.

  

  

• Eco, in fact, is the theme of many other booths as well, including a line of clothing made from recycled plastics recovered from the Mediterranean.

  

• Beneteau is making very, very large boats these days, up to a 62 footer that has a compartment under the cockpit for a RIB.

  

• New power yachts for the most part are just plain ugly.

  

• RIBs are everywhere in all sizes, shapes and colors.

  

  

At Barcelona’s show, everyone boarding boats were required to put on footies over their shoes or walk on barefoot. I was not surprised at the barefoot requirement, but I had never seen the footies before. And yes, they are sponsored by the likes of Yanmar, Volvo and other manufacturers.

Virtually everyone we spoke to in the booths and at the boats spoke excellent English. As soon as we revealed ourselves to be Americanos, they immediately switched from Spanish to English. Seems our language has pretty much become the lingua franca of business.

We walked through both sides of the show, then left to go grocery shopping, only to find Santa Caterina market closed in the middle of the day on Saturday. We recalled that this was not the first time that we found it closed when it should have been open. So instead, we walked back into the Barri Gotic and a large supermarket on Carre Ample not far from our apartment for our major list of provisions, including dinner for the next couple of nights.

After a quick, delicious lunch of tapas at a place named Tapas Barcelona (how clever), we finished off the day with another stroll through the boat show. How many times can you walk through a boat show? Answer: as many as you can on a one-day ticket.

 

 

 

You didn’t think we would leave Nice without gawking at the mega yachts and taking a boat ride, did you?

The Nice port right now is hosting a number of very large yachts, probably working their way out of the Med and toward the Caribbean for the winter. We will see how many are in Barcelona.

One that could not be overlooked was the Odessa II, a modest 242-foot yacht owned by Russian-American investor Len Blavatnik. The vessel is reportedly worth in excess of $100 million. Mr.Blavatnik likes his toys–in addition to the Odessa, he owns four airplanes, including a Boeing 757.

Moored alone on the other side of the port was the Virginian, a mere 204 feet, owned by Lord Bamford of England. It’s valued at a modest $70 million.

Lord Bamford owns the third largest construction company in the world but is estimated to be personally worth only $3.6 billion. He likes his toys too, as he collects vintage Ferraris. He owns only one jet, a $60 million Gulfstream G650 that no doubt comes in handy when he wants to visit his palatial estates in England (two manors), France (a chateau) and Barbados (a Palladian villa).

In addition to these two boats that stood out and were obviously here only temporarily, the harbor also sported a row of large yachts Med-moored to the quay.

There were four in a row from Malta. Perhaps the Maltese insist on being together or perhaps the Nicoise insist on keeping them segregated.

Of course, not all the boats are huge or beautiful. Some are just large and ugly. Maybe the ugliest boat we have ever seen.

 

On our last day in Nice, we decided to take a one-hour boat excursion that would take us through Villefranche sur Mer and in the Baie des Anges so we could view Nice from the water.

It was a pleasant ride around a large cruise ship anchored in the bay at Villefranche sur Mer, as the captain related the stories of all the royalty and celebrities that once built and now own the huge villas overlooking the bay.

Nice is no longer the favored spot of the rich and famous. They have all migrated to the suburbs of Villefranche sur Mer, St. Jean Cap Ferrat, Antibes, St. Tropez and the other trendy spots along the Cote d’Azur. Today Nice is for people like us, a lovely spot on the Mediterranean with impossibly blue water, skies to match, great restaurants and the laid back lifestyle of a beach town with class.

Before we retired to our apartment for our last meal at home, we took a final stroll down the Promenade just to breathe the atmosphere, gaze at the cerulean sky and watch the sunbathers on the pebbled beach. On the way back down the street to the apartment, we stopped at Chat Noir restaurant to tell Giorgio good-bye as he too leaves Nice, but for Marseille and a new restaurant. He does not yet know what his new place will be named in Marseille, but we have his phone number. We’ll stay in touch.

Au revoir, Nice.