Author: tom@thomaslong.net

Our trip to Nice started Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. It would not finish until 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, which would be 4:30 a.m. our body time. And most of that was suffocatingly masked up.

Our friend Potter Ballard picked us up to take us to the airport right at 9 a.m. As we alighted at Moisant, I mentioned he had a potentially great second career as an Uber driver.

Our flights from New Orleans to Kennedy and Kennedy to Paris were uneventful. We enjoyed Delta’s Sky Club while waiting on the first two legs. The New Orleans lounge features some local dishes such as gumbo, and both lounges had excellent bars. The New Orleans bartender even showed off his version of a Bloody Mary by adding just a touch of red wine, which gives the drink a little richness. I made a mental note to try this at home when we return.

Our flight to Paris was perhaps a third full, which afforded Lynn an entire row in the middle to stretch out and get some sleep as we crossed the Atlantic. We landed in Paris right on time, and then the adventure began.

We taxied from the runway for a good 20 minutes before stopping, when we were informed that we would have to depart the plane by stairs and board buses to Terminal 2. The temperature was about 35 degrees Fahrenheit in the predawn hours, so we were none too pleased to march through the cold to a packed bus for transport into the terminal.

As we waited to deplane, I noticed out the window that we were going nowhere, because for some reason, the ground crew could not get the stairs up to the aircraft door. After ten minutes of trying, they gave up and brought in another truck to literally push the first one away from the plane. A few minutes later, a second motorized stairway drove up and successfully connected so we could deplane.

And wouldn’t you now it–we reach the bottom of the steps and were held up by the gate attendant because the first bus was full. SO we stood in the cold for another few minutes waiting on the first bus to depart and the second one to pull up in its place.

Once our bus filled up to capacity (so much for social distancing), we finally took off to Terminal 2. It was then that I realized we had been parked somewhere very distant from airline civilization. The bus ride was a good 15 minutes along a series of roads outside the airport, then through the bowels of Charles de Gaulle, until we pulled up and tumbled out to crowd into the terminal through a single doorway.

And then….well, nothing. No signage, no directions to tell us or anyone else where to go. Attendants we asked gave conflicting instructions. First we took a train from wherever we were to take us into Terminal 2K, where we were directed to collect our luggage. I thought it strange that we were getting our bags first before Passport Control, and asked several officials where that was. But no one had an answer except to go to 2K for baggage.

Finally, someone asked for our luggage receipts, and I fished them out of my briefcase, whereupon we discovered that our bags had been checked all the way to Nice. Apparently the French authorities don’t really care it we smuggle something in, as long as we wear a mask while doing so.

Now it was finally time to find Passport Control, as we made our way to Terminal 2F, essentially retracing our many steps back to 2K, then on the 2F. But not before showing someone our vaccination records. The French officials waved my expired pass sanitaire right through as we entered security again for one more showing of our boarding passes and vaccination records.

Finally we reached Passport Control. That was all but an afterthought for the French, as the Immigration officer quickly checked our passports, stamped them and asked to see our vaccination records one more time. We could be illegal aliens entering on fake passports, but by golly the French will make sure we are vaccinated. They don’t take chances.

The flight schedule board estimated that our gate was 30 minutes away, not counting passport control, so even though we had two hours between flights, we were getting close to boarding time. Hustling through the ubiquitous duty-free stores in the terminal, we entered the cavernous gate area containing F41-56 and found Gate F53 and our flight to Nice.

When we were called up to board, I could see that this was to be a laborious process. Sure enough, we had to show our boarding pass, passport and vaccination proof one more time before walking down the jetway to the plane.

As we boarded the aircraft, we encountered the final indignity–the attendant forced us to change out our regular masks for the useless surgical kind that billowed out on all four sides, inviting the omicron gremlins in.

But wait–there’s more. I was terribly thirsty by now, having endured hours of single-digit airplane humidity. No water on board, however. The French have forbidden any food and drink on all public transport to make sure no one sneaks a mask off while taking a bite or a sip. The domestic trains have actually shut down their dining cars. Did I say the French take no chances?

Our abbreviated (for us) trip to Nice started well before we left for the airport. As a matter of fact, the process began Sunday at 3 p.m. with the now-obligatory Covid test before getting on the plane to France Tuesday morning.

In their new-found zeal to stamp out Covid omicron, aka a common cold, France now requires a negative Covid test two days before flying out, so I scheduled our test at the local urgent care clinic for 3 p.m. Sunday, giving a couple of hours in case our plane might be late. I didn’t want to tempt fate by having to explain to Delta or French authorities that we tested prematurely.

We showed up at the urgent care office a few minutes before 3 p.m. and checked in at the desk. It was 3:40 p.m. by the time we were called in, and the nurse asked us why we were there. Two questions immediately crossed my mind: 1) What’s the purpose of making an appointment (as they instructed me) if we have to wait 40 minutes to be called in? and 2) Didn’t the nurse talk to the receptionist before taking us inside? I explained again patiently that we need Covid tests to fly.

Now the light bulb went off, and she brought in two of the infernal swabs, which she inserted up into our respective crania. This time I put the test to the clock. Some 20 minutes later she came back with the glorious news that we tested negative. She handed us our papers, wished us a bon voyage, and out we went, relieved and excited to head for Nice.

Once home, I proceeded to duplicate the documents every which way I could think. I scanned them, photographed them and tucked the originals away in a folder to go into my briefcase. We were liberated, free of Covid fear and free to travel. Worse case now is that we test positive before leaving France, so we have to spend a few more days in Nice.

But now we can start packing. We’re good to go.

Awakened at 5 a.m., we were showered, dressed, packed and ready to head out to Heathrow via the Express by 6:30. A quick taxi ride to Paddington Station and an equally fast train ride out to Heathrow had us checking in at the Delta desk with plenty of time to spare.

We showed our passports, but no one asked for a vaccination record or our negative Fit to Fly test or the self-attestation form. I know I had uploaded the self-attestation, but couldn’t remember if I had done the same with the Fit to Fly test letters. Document checks are inconsistent from airline to airline and country to country. Nevertheless, checked in, we headed for security.

Heathrow’s security is efficient, polite, organized and thorough. Belts, watches, jackets, computers, iPads, phones and anything else that even resembles metal. I have learned to put my wallet in my briefcase because most new credit cards are now metal and will set off the scanners. But we made it through in one pass, reassembled ourselves and marched off to look for a lounge to wait on our flight.

We found the American Express Centurion lounge, which offered some interesting egg breakfasts and a bar where I ordered a Bloody Mary, which turned out pretty good, better than I expected. They don’t use plain tomato juice but rather a true Bloody Mary mix, the only one I have encountered outside of Milk in Barcelona.

After a relaxing hour or so in the lounge, it was time to head to Gate 31, a 20-minute walk, according to the desk attendant. It didn’t take us 20 minutes due to people movers, but I can understand why they estimate that time. It’s a long way down a long concourse. Heathrow is huge.

We showed our passports one more time, then boarded and Lynn gave our flight attendant her standard bribe of a bag of individually chocolates that we had purchased in Covent Garden. The crew was most appreciative, and gave us excellent service the entire flight.

Our flight was not much more than half full. Americans still are not traveling to Europe in large numbers, and Europeans can’t enter the U.S. until November 8. The numbers will go up soon, and I suspect by summer, planes will fly across the Atlantic fully booked. But right now, this is a great time to fly and to visit Europe.

We took off from London pretty much on time a new minutes after 10 a.m. and landed less than seven hours later in New York at 1:30 p.m. local time. That’s really nothing more than a long day trip, and you don’t feel the jet lag for a while. We wisked through Global Entry in minutes, retrieved our baggage quickly, walked through Customs and we were outside. The entire clearance process didn’t take a half an hour.

We were back in the U.S.

In fact, there was no line at the taxi stand, so we climbed into the first one and hit the expressway, which itself had virtually no traffic on a Saturday afternoon. The ride took less than 45 minutes, but the fare was $72, which included a $2.50 congestion charge–on a Saturday. I have to question that. I don’t remember cabs to and from Kennedy costing that much, and we had just taken one that took nearly two hours into JFK back in August for a fare of about $66.

The Iroquois welcomed us and gave us a second floor room over looking the street that was ready for occupancy early. We grabbed it, despite the clerk’s admonition that it might be noisy since it was so close to the street. We didn’t care, and as it turned out, the room was spacious and for the most part very quiet.

We slept just fine.

Our last day abroad was rainy. What can you expect in London?

For the last seven weeks, we had enjoyed beautiful weather for the most part. Except for that one drenching rainy day in Paris, we had seen nothing but blue skies and reasonably comfortable temperatures ranging from cool in Paris to warm in Barcelona. So it was perhaps fitting that our last day would be rainy.

But that didn’t stop us. We decided to go down to Westminster, just four stops and one transfer on the tube, staying dry underground. Our initial goal was Westminster Abbey, where we had not visited in some 20 years. But they have applied a pretty stiff price to their tickets, so we slightly changed plans–a river tour on the Thames.

What could be more fun in the rain? The last time we did anything like this was at least ten years ago at a cocktail party for Cumberland Cup.

We chose Thames River Sightseeing among the row of tour operators. The price was reasonable, and they promised a bar on the boat. The boat went from Westminster to the Tower of London, then back up the river all the way to Greenwich before returning to Westminster, a trip of nearly two hours.

The boat was not terribly crowded, and we snagged a table for ourselves before two elderly British ladies ensconced themselves on the bench opposite us. The commentary as we moved along the river was funny, satirical and a bit biting if you were a sensitive type. Apparently the two British ladies were sensitive.

They disembarked in an argument with the bartender over whose closest relative had succumbed to the current plague, the commentary’s deprecating (but hilarious) remarks about the Tate Museum of Modern Art and the location of the boat’s Tower stop, which they claimed to miss because no one told them. Except that boat was not scheduled to stop where they indicated. The entire incident was a bit unclear, but they left in a huff to no one’s regret.

The trip was overall a real hoot. We passed alongside the new survey vessel that the public had voted to name Boaty McBoatface (true story–look it up). The authorities decided to select a more conventional name (polar scientific research vessel RRS Sir David Attenborough), but acknowledged the vote of the public by naming one of the vessel’s three autonomous underwater probes after the popular vote winner. Unfortunately, we passed alongside Boaty in the worst of the rain, so my photo is impressionist at best.

We enjoyed more irreverent commentary about contemporary London architecture and a quick stop in Greenwich at the Cutty Sark, which burned to the waterline on May 21, 2007, while were sailing the Cumberland Cup (wasn’t our fault) and was restored by 2012. After nearly two hours of pleasant, sometimes rainy but interesting cruising on the river, we alighted back at the Westminster dock as the rain finally moved out.

After a decent fish sandwich lunch at nearby St. Stephen’s Tavern, we made our way back to our cabin at the club to pack up for an early departure the next day and get ready to meet our great friends John Dallimore and Linda Pennington for a last dinner abroad. We joined them at the downstairs bar of the club (no ties required there) and embarked on three hours of catching up.

JD is an active skier, and he has not been able to travel to Switzerland for more than a year, much less the U.S. We sympathized, since our own trip had been planned and postponed twice in 2020.

Dinner was at Motcomb’s, a pretty traditional British restaurant, where Lynn and I enjoyed excellent shepherd’s pie, and John and Linda both had the beef bourguignon, along with a most delicious Portuguese wine that our waiter praised as the best in the house. We couldn’t argue.

We had to be up at 5 a.m. the next day to get to Heathrow for a 10 a.m. flight, so we finished dinner at a reasonable hour and returned to the club, again pledging to see each other sooner rather than later.

After all, seeing Michele and JD was really the reason for extending our trip a few days into London. Not to mention using my overseas membership status. It’s always great to be where everyone knows your name.

We have known Michele for some 15 years, going back to our very first team racing in London in 2007. She has stayed at our house, we have met up in Paris, Venice and London, but the pandemic has kept us apart, as it has so many others.

It was time to correct all that.

But first we had some business to take care of. We had to walk down Knightsbridge to the City & Travel Clinic to discuss getting an antigen test for a Fit to Fly certificate that would get us on our plane home. At the same time, England requires a Day 2 test after you arrive, and as of this week would recognize an antigen test in addition to the PCR.

Think about this for a minute. Even if you are fully vaccinated, you have to have a negative test to enter the U.S. That seems a bit excessive but logical. England, on the other hand, allows fully vaccinated people into their country with no previous test but requires a negative test after two days. That means you can enter England and infect people for two days before going into quarantine for 10 days.

In our case, because we were only scheduled to be in London for two days and three nights, the Day 2 PCR test results would come back after we left the country. We were forced to take two tests at the same time, and pay for them both, even though only one would be needed. This made no sense.

So we walked down to the clinic just a block from the Thames and explained the situation to the receptionist. She understood immediately, offered to cancel the second set of tests and give us our antigen Fit to Fly test right then and there. We eagerly agreed.

Some 15 minutes later, I received the e-mail that certified that we were indeed Fit to Fly, negative for any sign of Covid. Both Lynn and I had been losing sleep this week or so, fearing that one of us might show some breakthrough infection and forcing us to make an expensive extension to our stay in London. I felt an immense sense of relief reading the simple letter. We could return home as scheduled.

Thrilled and relieved, we were ready to head off to meet Michele at Covent Garden for a festive lunch.

When we arrived, we didn’t recognize Covent Garden. It has been transformed into a huge mall featuring street performers in the outdoor plazas, shops inside and outside, restaurants, entertainment and most impressive, an Apple store, one of about a half dozen in greater London.

We were early, so we had plenty of time to explore everywhere and find candy for Lynn to bribe the flight attendants on the way back to the U.S. (It works.)

We arrived at Palm Court right on time to meet Michele, who had already taken the table and ordered a Bellini. Another two for us were quickly ordered, and hugs were made all around. We had not seen each other for some two years.

Lunch was festive, fun and tasty, as we caught up on our lives through the pandemic. I ordered the partridge special of the day, Lynn had a delicious roasted chicken with savory potatoes and Michele, who is a semi-vegetarian, ate the special mushroom casserole over rice. Needless to say, we shared a bottle of wine over our delicious meals.

As we finished lunch, it was clear that Michele had planned to party. We walked around Covent Garden from bar to bar, stopping in for a drink until Lynn declared she had had enough and ordered a cup of espresso. The bar did not serve coffee, but did offer an espresso martini, so Lynn ordered one and simply asked to hold the martini. The waitress looked a bit confused, as the movie Five Easy Pieces flashed through my brain, but she caught on and brought Lynn a cup of very strong, very bitter espresso, the way Europeans drink it.

Three bars later, including the illustrious Mrs. Riot (look it up at www.mrsriotlondon.com), the evening was beginning to draw near, and we had dinner reservations at the club. Michele was not deterred. We took the Underground back to Royal Thames where we ensconced ourselves downstairs in the bar and kept right on doing what we had been doing all day long: drinking and talking.

I had to run to our cabin to change clothes and put on my tie for dinner after an unfortunate encounter with a glass of wine. Meanwhile a German friend of Michele’s whom she knew from sailing happened to walk into the bar and joined us. We compared notes and realized we had sailed against each other years ago at Cumberland Cup. The party continued.

Finally, we it was time to go upstairs for dinner for us. Michele stayed downstairs with her German friend, showing no sign of leaving. She is well known and quite popular at the club and was having a great time. We were happy to be a part of the celebration.

But before we parted, we planned to catch up in New York in late November, Nice in January, Wimbledon in July and the Amalfi Coast next fall for a Big Birthday for Michele. We’ll make up for missing each other over the past two years.

Time to leave Barcelona. We rose a little early, finished packing and walked out to find a cab, which pulled up in less than 10 seconds. While our driver loaded our luggage into the car, I ran up to the apartment to leave the keys on the table. Wouldn’t you know–the elevator was in use, so I dashed five floors down the stairway while the patient driver waited.

He spoke fairly good English and explained on the way to the airport that summer business had been terrible, but tourism is finally now picking up with the return of the cruise ships. At 9:30, the incoming traffic to the city was bumper to bumper as we sped to the airport in the opposite direction.

Barcelona Prat airport is huge, modern and eerily quiet. Before the pandemic, it handled 50 million passengers a year. (By comparison, New Orleans at its peak was about 9 million.) We walked through the one entrance into the vast terminal to join the long queue of Ryan Air passengers checking in for multiple morning flights. The line moved fairly expeditiously, and when we walked up, the pleasant attendant checked our passports, vaccination (EU was acceptable), UK passenger form and of course our tickets. Then she handed me a little slip of paper with a handwritten legend that said: “Docs OK.”

Off we went to security, where we had to doff belts, watches and jackets, take out computers, iPads, phones, pocket change and anything else that the metal detector might pick up. I had kept my wallet in my pocket and set off the alarm when I realized that credit cards are now metal. Lynn had to return because she forgot to take out her bag of toiletries, because she is used to USA TSA Pre, which allows passengers to keep that stuff in their bags.

We reassembled ourselves and started the winding walk through the Duty Free store before emerging into the main terminal to find our concourse and gate. The airport remained quiet the entire walk, so unlike others where unintelligible announcements follow each other minute by minute.

The gates are grouped into pods, and we had been told to go to W, where we found a small shop to grab breakfast sandwiches. As we ate, we could see people flowing toward Gate 42, our flight to London. The line formed from the check-in desk all the way out to where we were, so we joined in. An airline employee came by to check our papers, and informed us that this line was for Priority, whatever that meant. I had paid extra for seat selection and baggage check, so naturally I thought we had priority. Not to be. We never did figure out what Priority meant, but we finally boarded nearly last, where our seats awaited but overhead bin space did not.

Ryan Air is famous (notorious) for being cheap in its fares and even cheaper in its operations. The plane had the least padded seats I have ever encountered on a commercial airline. In fact, there was no padding at all, either in the seat bottom or the back. And the seats don’t recline, which is fine with me. Ryan has even eliminated the pocket in the seat back, instead placing the required safety rules on a decal affixed to the seat. All to reduce weight and therefore save fuel and money.

Our flight took off more or less on time. We watched Spain and France below us for two hours before landing at Stansted, which was built during WWII as a military base for American and British planes. Today it serves as Ryan Air’s main hub and has been quite modernized.

Our entry through passport control was automated; we simply placed our passports into the green lighted machine and looked up at the overhead screen to be registered. The gate opened automatically, and we entered England. A large crowd gathered to wait on the Stansted Express train, but surprising to me, we had room for our large suitcases and found seats easily. Lynn chatted up a young man sitting across the aisle who was returning form surfing in Biarritz with his board carefully stowed in the luggage rack above.

Our taxi ride from Liverpool Station took us through the heart of London’s financial district and fabled Fleet Street. Traffic was heavy all the way to Royal Thames and what had originally looked like a short ride turned into a 30 pound journey.

The Thames welcomed us warmly, addressing me by name before I could even identify myself. We settled into our room and made plans for dinner at the Italian restaurant we had recalled from previous years.

Except it was the wrong restaurant. Osteria Romana is a small intimate Italian establishment right around the corner from the club. We had mistaken that for Signor Sassi, where we had dined several times over the years. But our mistake turned fortunate–Osteroia Romana is a better place.

Our waiter snipped basil leaves directly from the live plant at our table, then

muddled them with their precious olive oil for our bread. My ox tail stew was pungent with flavor, and Lynn’s pasta Gricia was rich enough with cheese that she couldn’t finish. We washed it all down with a pichet of delicious Montepulciano, one of the better and pricier vintages on the wine list. The days of 20 euro wine are over; this pichet was 38 pounds, and the entire dinner set us back 93.15 pounds, the most we have spent on dinner the entire trip.

But it was worth it, and it was good to be where we all speak more or less the same language.

Barcelona is a beautiful, unique city. If you were transported here and opened your eyes, you would know you are in Barcelona. The architecture is so distinctive, so uniquely Catalan. People here are proud of that and still pissed that they are part of Spain. I feel their pain, but they are not going anywhere.

At least this visit, there were no protests, as there were all over town last time we were here, exactly two years ago.

Life in Barcelona has changed in many ways due to the pandemic, yet in many ways maintains the same pace and grace we have experienced in the past.

Life in the pandemic

Masking is mandatory everywhere indoors and on all public transit, no exceptions. About the same percentage of Barcelonans as Parisians wear masks outdoors, perhaps one quarter. But here in Barcelona, the ubiquitous mask has become a wearable fashion. Many people walk the streets with the mask around their elbow. Others keep it around their necks under their chins. I don’t know which looks worse.

Signs also direct people entering buildings to squirt ever-present disinfectant on their hands. I thought this was optional until I noticed a sign that listed the practice as mandatory. I didn’t do it anyway. That stuff is disgusting.

Unlike France, Spain does not require proof of vaccination when entering a restaurant or other indoor establishment. People come and go in the markets and shops simply deploying their masks as soon as they enter and taking them off as soon as they exit.

Spain, by the way, has one of the lowest case rates in Europe, a fifth of the rate in the U.S.

Business in the pandemic

For restaurants and many others, it’s the same story of finding people to work. As a result, some places have closed down indefinitely (two of the four Sensi restaurants and the bank on the ground level of our building), while others have shortened their hours or curtailed services (Fastnet and Pennybanger).

As we walked around Barri Gotic and El Born, we saw a number of For Sale or Available signs at obviously closed commercial properties. Even tony Gracia had some vacancies among the luxury brand stores. Clearly, the pandemic has had an effect on business, which our cab driver to the airport confirmed.

Tourism

While we have seen more tourists here in Barcelona than in Paris, the numbers are still significantly down. Notwithstanding, two or three tour buses at a time pull up on the street in front of our apartment every day, either reloading or disgorging their passengers. And we see group tours with the ubiquitous guide paddles streaming through Barri Gotic and around the major sights, just not as many as we have seen in years past.

The cruise ships just started to return in September, and we saw three or four of them in a row during our stay.

We heard a lot of German, probably because Barcelona is still warm and Germany is already cold. We also heard a fair amount of American English, much more than we did in Paris. Both are probably due to Barcelona’s climate in the fall and worldwide popularity as a tourist destination.

However, there are no Chinese. They can’t get out, and no country will let them in.

Miscellaneous observations

Traffic moves a lot faster in Barcelona than it does in Paris, where the speed limit is 30 kph but in reality is more like 20. As a result, Barcelonans for the most part cross at the light, whereas Parisians are world-class jay-walkers. The other danger in Barcelona is that although bicycles have their own lanes, skateboards and scooters go wherever they want, so pedestrians have to look 360 degrees at all times.

Grafitti is pervasive in all European cities, especially the major ones we have visited. And it is quick. The Caixa Bank branch at the base of our building had obviously just closed, because the boards over the windows were painted black. In 48 hours, they were completely tagged.

One thing that has surprised me about both Paris and Barcelona is the number of food delivery services. We saw the insulated boxes on bicycles everywhere in both cities. Why people pay to have food delivered when great restaurants are all around them is beyond me.

Down to our last two days in Barcelona, it was time for just walking around, enjoying the sights we have seen so many times.

Sunrise here is spectacular over the marina; we never cease to marvel at that. The view from our window displays the mega-mega-yachts, the tour buses that park right beneath us, the newsstand that opens every morning early and the people walking, biking, skateboarding and scootering up and down the street. Even down here at 41 degrees latitude, the autumn sun does not rise until about 7:45 a.m., so we awake in the dark to watch the light come up over Barcelonetta.

The days grow shorter, and so does our time here.

The weather has been nothing short of perfect with blue skies and temperatures rising to the low 70s in the afternoon. We ventured out for the one thing we had yet to do, take a harbor cruise. Honestly, it’s not all that interesting, but the ides of spending an hour or so on a boat appealed to us.

We walked up just in time for the first excursion at 11 a.m. on the huge yellow catamaran that promised an eco-cruise of 40 minutes. The only other passengers were several Middle Eastern couples, four young men with small suitcases (had they just arrived or were they leaving from the boat?), a few older couples who chose to stay on the lower deck and us.

It was a quiet cruise. There was no commentary. We rather liked that.

We passed along the cruise ship terminal where three ships were berthed, two of them massive. The MSC Seaview is on a five-day cruise around the Med. It can hold more than 5,000 passengers, although I doubt that many were on board this time, considering the circumstances. We agreed that we would never, ever get on such a thing.

On the other side of the harbor were the boatyards servicing more mega-yatchs, some of which were tented over. One of the biggest was Eclipse, formerly owned by Roman Abramovitch, the Russian billionaire who traded that one in for the world’s largest private yacht. The brother of a friend of ours runs Abramovitch’s leisure holdings, including the yacht and the spread on St. Barts.

As soon as we cleared the harbor, we encountered a gentle swell from the open Med. The huge cat proceeded for about a mile along the beach before turning around and heading back. For us, it was pleasant. For the Middle Eastern men, it was nap time. They lay out on the cushioned seats, took off their shoes and proceeded to sleep through the rest of the short cruise.

Back onshore, we walked around the marina to Barcelonetta and The Fastnet where we wanted to have lunch and say our farewell to their staff. But when we walked up, the owner explained they didn’t serve food on Monday. Usual reason–they can’t get a second chef, and they can’t work their one chef seven days a week or he will leave and they will have nothing.

We have heard this from New Orleans to Newport to Paris to Toulouse to Barcelona.

We walked past the Picture Path of food, as Lynn termed the restaurants along the main street, and into the square right behind Fastnet’s back door. There we found two restaurants and chose Can Ganassa, which offered an entire menu for 10 euros with a 10% surcharge for the terrace. For 11 euros, that was impossible to turn down.

And this was no small lunch. It included a salad, a plate, a drink and dessert. It included a full plate of food. In my case, I had beef and vegetables grilled on two skewers, plus grilled vegetables on the side and a heaping serving of rice. We ordered two small beers, which remarkably was included in the price. Lynn couldn’t finish her eggplant lasagna. And we could have had dessert too, but were just too stuffed.

Now mid-afternoon, we strolled back to the apartment so I could wrestle with UK testing requirements. That required a few phone calls to London, numerous attempts on the Internet and a double charge for testing–nearly $400. More about that later, but it was nerve-wracking, confusing, time-consuming–and expensive.

I finished the ordeal right at cocktail hour, but by then, I was not too fastidious with the exact time.

We walked out to dinner again at Gilda, which distinguished itself even more than the first time. We ordered the Argentine crispy prawns over curry ice cream again (decadently good); the burrata Caprese salad (definitely enough for two); foie gras with marmalade (even more decadent) and the biggest mussels I have ever seen. Our Belgian owner said they came from Gallicia in northern Spain; a Belgian would know his mussels.

Sunday. You know what that means in Barcelona.

Milk!

No, not that kind. Milk the restaurant for brunch and Bloody Marys, the very best in Europe. This was our third time there in a week, second for brunch.

Milk serves a daily brunch of classic Eggs Benedict, rich with hollandaise sauce and thick, very meaty bacon strips over slices of baguettes, with a salad on the side. It’s more than we can eat comfortably, but it’s so good.

And then there are their Bloody Marys. Milk’s secret is a lot of lemon juice, which I learned several years ago and emulate at home. But the real topper is exactly that–they top off the drink with a shot of Guiness from the tap that eventually melts down through the glass to give the drink a richness that is unique to their version. I have never been able to recreate that at home.

We arrived just a few minutes before 9:30 to take one of the last tables available. As we sat down, we saw our Puerto Rican dinner companions from the night before at the adjacent table toasting us with their own Bloody Marys for sending them there. They were on their way to the Barcelona-Madrid soccer match, a major sports event if there ever was one.

We waited on our drinks to arrive, but the food came first, because the bar was running behind due to high morning demand. Smoothies take longer to make than Bloody Marys, and this crowd was oh-so-healthy while they pigged out on stacks of pancakes topped with whipped cream and maple syrup. We started our own healthy helpings, and finally the breakfast juice arrived, spicy and delicious as always.

After our short, obligatory late morning post-brunch nap, we had time to kill before taking the bus to Parc Guell, so we walked a few blocks down the street to Barcelona’s pretty City Park that resembles a cross between Jardin des Plantes and the Tuileries in Paris.

The park is surrounded by museums, the Barcelona Zoo and a small municipal stadium. Inside the grounds are a small lake where visitors can rent row boats to go pretty much nowhere and a large, ornate cascading fountain in the center. All the way at the end of the park stands Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf that was built for the 1888 Universal Exhibition.

We didn’t venture that far down, choosing instead to enjoy the cascade and the bandstand not far away filled with elderly residents dancing, very much like a Catalan version of Cajun dancing in front of the Fais Do Do Stage at Jazz Fest.

After our short visit to the park, we set off for Parc Guell in the northern reaches of Barcelona. Parc Guell was intended to be a planned upscale residential community, somewhat like Lake Vista but with Gaudi as the architect and his patron Eusebi Guell as the developer. As a residential neighborhood, it never really succeeded, so the park was turned over to the city and eventually became a private enterprise. Today it is a popular destination for locals and attracts large crowds to the main entrance that displays Gaudi’s fanciful architecture.

Inexplicably, Apple Maps sent us to the back of the park rather than the front. That necessitated an arduous climb up the mountain with only one working escalator. Lynn’s knees were not happy.

And when we finally reached the entrance, we had to climb some more to get to the three crosses monument, which is not what we paid seven euros a piece for. Apple Maps was no help navigating through the winding, dusty trails down the hill to the other side and the main attraction. This was not what we crossed town for.

But as we worked out way across and down, we felt like we were making progress. Gaudi had also designed a series of aqueducts to carry water down the mountain. They looked like sand castles at the beach, but they were all carefully created for a purpose.

Finally, we found our way to the correct side down the hill and enjoyed the view of Gaudi’s entry buildings and his fanciful lizard of broken tiles. The walls around the central pillared pavilion were paved with similar types of mosaics, and the crowds were heavy enough that we had to wait in line to enter. But it was a short wait, and it was worth it.

This was what we paid seven euros each for.

After all that climbing and wandering through dusty trails, we needed a beer. The concession stand inside the entrance was the perfect spot to slake our thirst and watch the patrons stream through.

And instead of a long walk to the nearest transit stop, we walked out the gate less than ten yards away from the 116 bus that took us to the Metro and back home. Once back in the apartment, I consulted Google Maps, which would have directed us right to the main entrance via the same transit lines we took home.

Lesson learned. Consult both map sources before leaving the house.

Serious Boat Porn has returned to Barcelona. Three 300-footers showed up over the last two days, stopping off here for provisioning and repairs on their way from summering in the Med to wintering in the Caribbean. They docked in tandem along the quay in sight of our apartment window, just as others of their size had done two years ago.

The smaller ones we marveled at earlier in the week are mere 150-200 footers, not even worth noting anymore now that their Big Sisters have arrived.

Viva is a 308-footer just launched this year for an American billionaire owner whose initials are FF. I could not track down the identity of this owner, but apparently his brother owns a similar boat as well.

Dynasty was the first to arrive. It stretches to 331 feet and is the oldest of the three, launched in 2015. The owner was Alijan Ibragimov, a Kazahkstan billionaire oligarch who died earlier this year, worth only two billion. Apparently the boat is currently for sale, if anyone is interested.

The last to arrive was Kaos, all 361 feet of her, the largest yacht ever built in the Netherlands. She is owned by Nancy Walton Laurie, Sam’s niece, who herself is worth about five billion, give or take a few hundred million.

Eye candy all, their crews scurry about, polishing here and there, running back and forth on the quay and generally making themselves busy before taking time off to wet their whistles at The Fastnet Bar across the marina in Barceloneta.

Equally, perhaps more, impressive that the gargantuan mega-yachts was another more modest sailboat in Royal Barcelona Yacht Club’s marina. We had lunch there again, and once again spent way more than any lunch we will ever spend in Paris or Barcelona or London or New York. The yacht club was a pleasant place with a diverse menu, but they charged for bread even though we declined it and added an item to our lunch that we were not aware we had ordered, despite the fact that their menu is in both French and English.

But from our table at the window overlooking the marina, I could see a sailboat that looked different from all the others, sporting a hooded cockpit and large outriggers spreading from the mast step. It was clearly a vessel meant to race across oceans. And in fact, it was. And it had just finished winning.

Offshore Team Germany was built in 2011 for the Vendee Globe and just won the Ocean Race Europe, a tune-up for the big Ocean Race that will start from Spain in 2022. The boat won the Europe series by all of four meters over the U.S.A.’s 11th Hour Racing in the final leg around the Med from Alicante, Spain to Genoa, Italy.

The Ocean Race, formerly the Volvo, will start from Alicante a year from now and stop in Newport for its last stop before the final leg to Genoa in late 2023. We’ll be sure to follow, as we always do. Better to watch from a computer than a rail.

We circumnavigated the large marina complex in Barcelona all the way to Barceloneta beach and back again to Columbus’s monument in the main harbor. Along the way, we stopped off for lunch at our favorite bar in Barcelona, The Fastnet, a true Irish sailor’s bar.

We chatted with Stephanie, our very pleasant Irish waitress and with her boss, the owner. We heard the same story as we had before in France. They were locked down for months, but managed to stay in business by selling beer over the counter to the workers on the mega-yachts who knew where to go for a beverage.

Business still has not come back fully, she said, which is why they have reduced hours to open at 1:30 p.m. on weekdays. But it is gradually returning, as tourists gradually return to Barcelona. As we chatted, four young men obviously from one of the boats came in to have glasses of Guiness stout. We contributed to the bar’s cause with a couple of beers each and four tapas orders of potatas bravas, anchovies, calamari and croquettes.

As we departed, we promised to come back before leaving Barcelona. It’s the least we could do.

We finished the night with a delicious dinner at Sensi Bistro, the sort of French version of Sensi. We sat next to a family from Puerto Rico who were visiting Barcelona for just a couple of days after flying in from Madrid–non-stop, those lucky souls. We shared some restaurant recommendations, especially for Milk the next day, since they were planning to attend the Barcelona-Madrid soccer match.

After that, for no apparent reason and against all good sense, we repaired to Pennybanger for a nightcap. Lordy.