By Thursday we were getting into the rhythms of the neighborhood. I got up at 7 and went out to buy breakfast. Seven o'clock on a weekday in Barcelona (at least in the old section) is like 6 a.m. in an American city: a handful of early workers are going to their jobs, delivery trucks and streetcleaners are blocking the roads, and the only things open are coffee places and a couple of groceries.
We rode the Metro in the opposite direction to the stop at the Church of La Sagrada Familia. It's far and away Barcelona's biggest single tourist attraction, and the neighborhood was full of souvenir vendors, guys peddling bottled water, and a vast swarm of visitors like ourselves.
We stood under a broiling sun in a line that stretched more than a city block, for the privilege of paying 50 Euros for the whole family to get in. And when we finally did get inside . . .
Our jaws dropped. It was worth it. Antoni Gaudi designed the most amazing church in all of Christendom. It's the only Modernist church building I've ever seen which isn't a petty adolescent rebellion against all previous architectural tradition. None of that at Sagrada Familia. It's a culmination of two thousand years of ecclesiastic architecture, which understands and honors what has gone before without being bound by it.
We spent at least a couple of hours in and around that church. It's nowhere near complete, and the construction crews are hard at work. Apparently a couple of million people a year paying 13 Euros a head can fund a blistering pace of construction. The place rang with the sound of power tools (no quaint medieval methods here). Supposedly they're set to complete it by the 2020s sometime, and it might well be worth a return visit.
The church visit left us tired and hungry, so we found our way to a paella restaurant nearby and had our first non-wonderful meal. It was pretty obviously reheated -- either microwaved or in a pan. Presumably came off a delivery truck like frozen hamburger patties at McDonald's. I don't mean the paella was bad -- we had a "mixed" and a "black" paella among the four of us and finished every grain -- but it was mediocre.
Protip for travelers: if the restaurant has a "Paellador" sign outside with photos of various types of paella, I think that's a brand of premade stuff and they're just reheating it. I saw a couple of those signs around town, all identical.
We walked along Diagonal Avenue (which in Barcelona, as opposed to J.K. Rowling's London, is a huge wide boulevard lined with buildings from the late 19th century), and then turned down Passeig de Gracia to continue our Gaudi tour. We saw (but didn't enter) his Casa Mila apartment house and the Casa Batllo mansion. Astonishingly, those two are even more costly to visit than Sagrada Familia. I had to balance my desire to see the interior against a tired family, a hot day, and my own sore feet, and decided to keep moving toward our flat.
Rather uncharacteristically, the ladies decided to do some shopping, so eventually we split into male and female teams so that I could get some gelato into our very patient youngest member as a reward for tramping around town looking at buildings. Then we all siesta-ed for more than an hour.
That evening was Grownup Date Night. We left the kids with bread and salami for sandwiches (and 10 Euros for more gelato), got into our nicer clothes, and walked over to the Barceloneta neighborhood to have dinner by the sea. It was only 8 o'clock so we were unfashionably early; some of the restaurants were just opening up. After walking down the seaside a fair distance we eventually decided to have our date dinner at a place called Salamanca. I get the impression it's a local institution -- the kind of restaurant locals would roll their eyes at, but probably also have some fond memories of. The menu in Ingles was charmingly garbled.
I had my first raw clams as an hors-d'oeuvre, and for the main event the two of us shared the Ginormous Grilled Seafood Platter. We accompanied it with a demi-bottle of Vina del Sol, a white from the vicinity. Since that day was July 4, we could see a group of young American tourists having a beach party on the sand.
Made our way home to find the kids had not caused any international incidents, and so to bed.
Cats sighted: 0
Tomorrow: going underground!
I love the church of Barcelona. Nice pics
Posted by: Rainer | 08/30/2013 at 07:16 AM