Mas que solamente ciudad, Barcelona. Not-impressing park. Still.

 

 

We had a nice brunch planned to start the long weekend. A quick google led us to La Cremati, a recently opened but very popular eatery. We ordered ours eggs and bacon and pancakes and added the Estonian flag to celebrate the day.

I've probably mentioned it a couple of times, but Parc Güell, one of Gaudi's masterpieces, has never really impressed me. I've been there a few times, each time hoping that maybe this time I'll get the phenomenon, but so far nothing. Nada. Scott, however, expressed his desire to go. When I first visited Barcelona 15 years ago, the entrance to the park was free. A couple of years later, they added a 3-euro fee to access this mosaic platform, and in 2022, entrance fee for the park was 10 euros per visitor.

Pictures of Parc Güell available on the internet are always colorful and full of mosaics. But what a first-time visitor like Scott doesn't know is that the mosaic is only a marginal part of the entire park, and everything else is just a park with a fairly common visual. Like every other time, the park did not impress us today either and we started to look for a way out. The exit was through a pillared platform, which they had taped it off to adjust the number of visitors on the platform at the same time. So we had no other option to leave but to wait in line for 15 minutes to get out.

We walked back through Gracia, which, unlike the aforementioned park, is one of my favourite areas in Barcelona. We saw a family beer joint and had tapas for lunch on the Placa del Sol. Lunch included my favourites, cod salad and crema catalana.

In the evening we went to the beach, watched the sand sculptures and the sunset.

Mas que solamente ciudad, Barcelona. Pintxos and arepas

 

 

At one o'clock, I shut down the working day and week and went for a quick run. This time I tried to avoid the crosswalks every 200 meters and headed through El Raval to the seaside. I'm still all good with my orientation skills - no issues getting to the sea and back to the hotel.

We planned a late lunch at our favorite pintxo bar, the one that Scott has been dreaming of all these more than 3 years. We walked through the city covered in cherry blossoms and it turned out that instead of the previously known self-service, now only samples were on display and your order was prepared for you in the kitchen. With that new development, half of the experience was gone. But the pintxos were still good.

Later in the evening we walked to the top of Montjuic to watch the sunset. It appeared that the sun was setting behind a layer of clouds. We walked down to the beach, stopped at La Boqueria and grabbed ourselves some smoothies. We had then the great idea to stop by the grocery store for fresh juice, bread and jamon for the morning. Tesco was conveniently open for another 15 minutes. We walked in and saw a checkout line that would probably take us until the early hours of the next day. We took off running, heels flashing, to at least reach El Corte Ingles. We barely got in when the lights were already slowly being turned off.

For the very late dinner I had an arepa again. It's just that good. And conveniently across the street from the hotel.

Mas que solamente ciudad, Barcelona. Arepa paradise

 

Tuesday morning we woke up to much more enjoyable views. The sun rose and the courtyard was pleasantly colourful. Our neighbour enjoyed his morning coffee on the roof terrace.

Unexpectedly, the day turned busy and there was no time for any gourmet joint. According to the Uber Eats there were arepas being made across the street and I ordered one with chicken and cheese. Fried. And it was the best arepa on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

At five o'clock I put on my running shoes and went for a run. It turned out that Barcelona downtown is not the greatest place to run. Too many street crossings and far too many people out. I did a loop to Ciutadella Park and back.

Pintxos for dinner. It was our favourite snack during the previous trip - we used to sit in front of long counter full of different pintxos and kept choosing and eating. During pandemic they had placed a lot of pintxos behind the glass and you need to be have them handed out to you. Some of them however are still on the counter and you can help yourself. Go figure the logic behind it. Praised restaurant, but rather average pintxos. The chocolate chip cookie for dessert was delicious!

At 8:50pm, on the way back to hotel, we took off running towards the nearest grocery store to get some bread and fresh juice for the morning and I also threw a bottle of gazpacho in the basket.

Mas que solamente ciudad, Barcelona. My amazing Spanish skills

I clearly could not accept the fact that our trip to Italy was cancelled, went online and bought tickets to Barcelona for a week.

This time we had purchased Ryanair's Priority Boarding so that in addition to a purse we could take a small suitcase with us on board. Along with our paid hand luggage, we got the right to priority board the plane. Turned out, only on paper. Until the gate, the situation was actually promising - two lanes - one for cattle carrying purses and the other one for the priority tourists who had paid the mentioned 20 euros. After the boarding pass check, both queues landed on the same stairs, and when the terminal door was finally opened, the whole crowd began to move towards the plane at once.

The flight was relatively uneventful for a Ryanair flight. Apart from a couple of heavy turbulence, there was nothing really significant. The departure was delayed by around an hour, so instead of half past midnight, we arrived at half past one at night, and moved through the fairly dark and completely empty airport.

They gave us the wrong room at the hotel, but promised to change it the next day. We went to our room and fell asleep.

By noon today, Scott had been dealing with getting the new room, and we moved from our slightly dark street-facing room on the second floor to a much more spacious room on the sunrise side and with court yard views on the seventh floor.

After finishing the working day, we left the hotel and made the first stop at the nearest tapas bar on the street corner and ate the first tapas. Since I have some difficulties using the English names of Spanish foods, I placed our order in Spanish and apparently impressed the waitress with my "authentic pronunciation".

We also walked to our churro joint because they had just advertised churro dogs a week ago. However, it turned out that the mentioned dogs are a delicacy only served on weekend nights. But gosh, their churro filled with dulce de leche is just out of this world. Quick stop in Starbucks and two mugs and one coffee drink later we got back to the hotel.

Anniversary menu

 

For our first wedding anniversary we went to Vegas. For the second one to Laulasmaa SPA. Third one we spent in Hedon SPA in Pärnu. For the forth one, we got the tickets to Italy. However Ryanair changed flight times so that it didn't really work for us anymore, and at the last minute we decided to stay home. 

We booked Päris Restaurant for dinner. And had absolutely delicious salmon tartar (my appetizer) and entrecote (Scott's main course).

New Year's Eve menu

 

 

What we ate in the NYE:

1. Beef tenderloin with hash browns

2. Salad wreaths (with quail eggs for one of us and salami for the other)

3. Caprese cane

4. Shrimp tempura and crispy pork belly

5. Macaroons and sparkling wine

6. Spring rolls and fried zucchini

7. Brownie with whipped cream

8. Chicken satay

9. Arepas with chicken and avocado

Happy New Year!