A Gaudi Day - plus

Barcelona - Monday

Having had two late starts on Saturday and Sunday I was awake this morning at the more usual time of 6.30. We were showered, dressed and out of the hotel just before 8.00 a.m. as we had a busy day planned, and weren’t planning to be out in the heat of the mid-afternoon as we had yesterday.

At 8.00 we caught the Linea 3 from Drassanes to Lesseps. We then walked along Travessera De Dalt until we came to Avenue Santuri Sant Josep de la Muntanya where there is a large monastry. I’m assuming the Catalan word muntanya means mountain because this road really was a mountain and led up to Parc Güell. Even though it was still before 9.00 in the morning the exertion of the mountain meant my shirt was soaked, Drew looked very exhausted by this point as the picture on the right shows.When you get to the top the views back to Barcelona are really good (see the photo below). The climb, and there were escalators on the last 1/3 of the mountain, was worth it as we came to the craziness that is Parc Güell.

Parc Güell is a celebration of Gaudi and his ways. As well as the house where Guadi lived which is in the park there are a wide variety of Gaudi displays. Drew felt he had been transported to somewhere in Middle Earth. As he said: “It is like Elrond was on steroids and added ceramics to Rivendell”.

We walked thorough the various routes in the park all bringing new sights to baffle the mind, the crocodile fountain was one of our favourites, but there is so much more.  The full collection of our Park Güell photos can be seen here

After the park we began to walk back to town, the first area we passe is called Carmel, people would need good legs (or cars) to live this high up. We stopped in a small local cafe called Dolce where Drew had Croissant de chocolate while I had another Boccodillo de Iberica washed down by dos cafe solo.

We walked to the bottom of the Carmel hill and onto Calle Sardenya this went through some residential districts and continued down hill until we came to Gaudi’s biggest masterpiece the Basilicaof the Holy Family (Sagrada Familia). This is just crazy, the range of spires, the fruit situated on the side of the Church, the skulls, skeletons and other images. The place where the stone looks as if it is molten and running, not a finished piece of work. All of these are memorable. Drew was completely mesmerised by the Church, he kept saying – “this Gaudi chap is so mad he makes me seem sane”. It is impact full and, of course, still unfinished. More photos, many more, can be found here.

From the Sagrada Familia we walked further down Sardenya until we came to the Bull Ring Monument, the faced of this is quite spectacular in a slightly more restrained style than Gaudi. From here we walked towards Placa Gloria to take a photo of the building that looks like the ‘Gerkin’ in London.

A further walk brought us to the Arc de Triomf and from there to the pretty park: Parc de la Ciutadella, the heat was starting to grow again, so we left the park and walked into the Barri Gothic through the little side streets that are so well shaded and in to a small tapas place called O’Pescador.








At O'Pescador Drew had Buñuelo Báculo and Croquetas while I had Chorizo and Pulpitos ajo, good food. Then it was back to the hotel at 2.30 for a quiet afternoon.

We had booked our evening meal at Restarante Montiel, in the Barri Gothic. We walked there through parts of the barri we had not been to before. Going straight up the street beside our hotel we came to the Place Realis, a big surprise to us. Up until now the part of Barcelona where we had been staying had been very Spanish, but the Place Realis was a large tourist trap which I’m glad we’d missed before. This led us on to St. James street which is also populated with things to make people forget they are away from home (Starbucks, Burger King etc.). it was nice to get past the end of St. James street and into Calle de Princess where we were back in more traditional Barcelona, we walked off this onto the street where Montiel is located.

The restaurant Montiel, though small, uses its space well, I guess my only complaint was that it was hard to use my Spanish here, they were determined to speak English, but gave a little as the meal went on. I guess the whole restaurant was full of British or American people but the food retained a clearly Catalunian style.

The menu allowed for a tasting menu of five courses or al la carte which had about 5 starters and 5 main courses. I’m afraid that the light in the restaurant, very low background lighting and candles, meant that we don’t have any photos of the food, we tried a couple but without using flash (and it didn’t seem that type of place) we couldn’t get a picture.

In Catalan our dinner was:

Pa amb tomaquet

Aperitivio Montiel

Tomaquet Amanit

Tartar de Salmo

Steak Tartar

Garri Iberic

Magret d’anec

Coulant de xocolata

Petit Fours

The bread with tomatoes and garlic was very tasty and formed a good start to the meal, the aperitifs were kalamata olives, little balls of lovely saltiness, sardines in vinegar and a local form of chorizo, there was also some small pieces of bread for dipping in olive oil, the gold of the gods as the waiter called it. We shared the starters of tomato salad which was soaked in oil and vinegar, steak tartar with capers and peppers and wild salmon tarter with a cinnamon and nutmeg taste. For mains Drew had opted for Magret de Pato, and had quite a large piece of duck breast perfectly cooked. I’d gong for the house specialty (I guess we might have gone for the tasting menu if this had been on it) of what I would normally call Cochinillo Ibérica, the lovely suckling pig, this one Segovia style. The crisp skin of the pig, with the soft warm meat underneath is a real treat, the balance of spices used here was very good indeed. While my earlier experience of Cochinillo Ibérica has been locally produced and tasty, this one, without losing the flavours had achieved the style of modern gastronome. Drew’s dessert was a chocolate souffle, light and airy with mango ice cream and cream. Drew was also forced to eat the petit fours which came with the coffees, two small white chocolate confections that disappeared at speed.

We walked back along El Born and Calle de la Merce and arrived back at the hotel just after 12.00.