Barcelona, la hermosa

As soon as I opened my eyes I felt like I'd drunk enough sangria to float the Queen Mary on.

In fact it could not have been any more than three (buckets), according to the bill.

Note to self - drink even less alcohol that you now drink, which is minimal, by anyone's standard, and drink more water, which again, is minimal by anyone's standard.

Today we did a really odd thing, for us. We jumped on a tour bus!

Yes, it's the sort of thing that I wouldn't normally admit to but it turned out to be both convenient and enlightening.

Two hour circuit with sixteen drop off/pick up points and a whole lot of explanations to go with the scenery.

We saw all sorts of things that Barcelona is famous for but the most impressive was Gaudi's Sagrada Familia

It's almost permanently covered, to some extent or other, with scaffolding and netting and has an incredibly long queue to get in so once again I've given you the benefit of others' pics.

It's hard to understand how a country that is supposed to have taken the GFC so badly can have a place so seemingly prosperous and well maintained.

This place is a model city when it comes to cleanliness.

I think we tourists probably "keep it afloat" in a financial sense.

After the tour was finished we were in need of a snack. As we had recently found a very big local market in one of our "let's head down here 'cos we haven't yet" walks we decided to try it.

It was a typical local foodies heaven. Every deli type stall has about 10 to 20 types of jamon, ranging from €30 to €180. Yes, these Spaniards take their jamon very seriously!

Cheese, yet another mountain of choices. Vegetables and fish stalls all lay out their produce as if each had employed an arts major to ensure that just looking at it would make you happy to pay for it.

We settled on some pre-cut/packaged jamon, some Catalan semi-hard cheese, a jar of huge white asparagus, a stick of bread and a cheap bottle of rosando, which in hindsight was a mistake.

A friend back in Oz once told me that it was near impossible to guarantee getting a good bottle of wine for less than $30.

Mike, we paid less than €4 for this one and it ended up down the sink.

                                                                                              Midday snack...with the biggest asparagus I've ever seen. I'll have to find out if the bitter finish to every mouthful is supposed to be there.

For dessert we ate "artisanal gelado" from our local Cremado franchise. Like most european ice creameries the choice can be overwhelming so the sensible thing to do is to plan on going there often and simply start at one end and work you way through the lot.

The rest of the afternoon saw us wondering around the alley ways with no particular aim in mind. There are little squares with surprises tucked away in all sorts of places. Just wonderful.

There are also surprises hidden in plain site. Such as you will find by taking a stroll down La Rambla.

La Rambla is a long wide strip connecting the beach to the Plaza de Catalunya, the nominal centre of town and where all the buses start/stop.

La Rambla has everything. Psuedo tapas places where they give you what they want for exorbitant money, a place where people with pressed shirts and expensive jewelry can buy a beer and watch the crowds stream by, dark skinned sellers of cheap small noisy toys, skate punks, English football tragics over here to get drunk, cause mayhem and watch a game of football, young girls and boys strutting there stuff on a warm spring night, pick pockets and so much more. There are very few places I know that have something like this and it's well worth take a stroll down this amazing stretch.

Tiz at the Mercat St Josef de La Boqueria on La Rambla

Night time came and we are acclimatising. It's ~9 and we're heading out for dinner. A local bar on the periphery otongif the local market, which we had hoped to eat at, is closed. Another bar will enjoy our company and euro's. Tonight is Tiz's night to choose were we eat. After a wee stroll we find a place, Tapas El Tropezon in the gothic barrio, that does not look like it caters for tourists. Perfect.


With our best "Hola!" we take a table and the waiter brings us two menu's and a pen and piece of paper.

In broken English he says "Write the numbers down." OK, so it's going to be ordering by numbers.

Tis has a Spanish/French menu and I get the Spanish/English one, which doesn't know.

Tiz's studies the menu trying to make and informed and appropriate decision. I wait patiently for maybe 10 or even 20 seconds and then start frantically writing down numbers. "OK. All done!" Benevolent dictatorships and chronic impatience works this way.

The waiter comes over and looks at the list with surprise, but takes it away.

As a necessity, I ask for "Dos tintos.", after all, a man does not live by tapas alone.

The wine comes immediately quickly followed by the eight LARGE dishes.

Catalan tomato bread.
Croquettes,
Padrones peppers.
Sardines, the size of small trout.
Snails.
Pork belly, of course.
Chicken wings.
Patatas bravas, with a mayo type topping that was just exquisite.

1 to 4 of 8 dishes at Tapas El Tropezon                      4 to 8 of 8 dishes at Tapas El Tropezon

These are not morsels of food, they are plates for a large banquet

No matter. I'm up for a challenge and the staff are obviously waiting to see how much can actually be consumed.

We did well, to everyone's surprise.

Tiz, is always moderate but I tend to work on the primal need to survive - You never know if you're going to get another feed and if you have one in front of you you may as well take advantage of it.

Eat the mammoth, Marino. All of it. Now.

What was left. Impressive, even by standards of gluttony.