October 15, 2010
My silicon earplugs worked perfectly but everyone else had a terrible night. I sent an e-mail to the owner complaining. How could she rent an apartment over a nightclub??!! I also called the apartment manager because the Harleys’ bathroom had a horrible sewer smell. Oh, brother…
We started our day with a walk along the harbor and the beach. The beach was very inviting; it must be packed in the summer. There were industrious entrepreneurs sculpting sand-art hoping for a few coins for their efforts. (We gave up a few coins so it works.) The weather was lovely—sun peaking in-and-out of the clouds. We stopped and had coffee and pastries.
We then caught a taxi back to the harbor’s shop area; did a little shopping; enjoyed Sangria; and headed off to the market so that I could video the experience. We looked for available seats at the market’s tapas bars for our lunch but it was hopeless. So we wandered away from the market along the many little streets and finally found Dostrece, a small little place with a 10E lunch menu.
We started with a great zucchini soup and nice bread with a red bell pepper dip (roasted red peppers pureed with garlic and olive oil). Catherine had a vegetarian rice dish; I had meatballs and mashed potatoes with tomato sauce; and H and Stephen had chicken brochettes with couscous. The chocolate pudding for dessert was great—it had South American spices added: all for 10E each including a glass of fairly good red wine.
We took a taxi to Montjuic, the hill overlooking the city centre. This area was chosen as the stage for Barcelona’s 1929 World Exhibition. It got a face-lift later for the 1992 Olympics and was renovated then again in 2000. We visited the Poble Espanyol (Spanish village) —116 houses located on 5 acres. Each house is a reproduction of one of the numerous architectural styles from all the regions of Spain. I stop at a jewelry store specializing in amber and find a beautiful bracelet. The beads are a mosaic of different colored amber. It’s mine!
We then walked down hill to view the Museum of Catalonian Art housed in what was the main pavilion of the 1929 Exhibition. The Font Màgica (Magic fountain) flows down on a series of terraces from the front of the museum. There is a lights-and-music show at the fountain in the evening but, unfortunately, it was not flowing when we were there. From the museum you can look down the hill and see the Avenue of Queen Maria Cristina with all its monuments and fountains that are laid out before you.
After a 7 hour day we caught a taxi back home. The plumber arrived to fix the sewage smell problem—at least the owners were attentive to one problem. We did get an e-mail about the night-club. They were shocked to hear about the noise! No one has ever complained! Yea, right… So we are supposed to call the police if it happens tonight. (Which we did to no avail; the revelry lasted until 2am.)