Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

It was J's birthday today, which I clearly forgot until the middle of the morning. All week, I had been trying to think of a way to celebrate a birthday while on vacation and then I just forgot. Then again, we're on vacation, the whole time is a celebration!

We thought we'd do a little shopping in the morning before catching a commuter rail-like train to Sitges. Taking advantage of our close proximity to Barcelona Cathedral, we popped in quickly in the morning and confirmed that it's not nearly as cool as Santa Maria del Mar. There is this crazy garden in the back of the Cathedral, though, with palm trees and geese. We then headed over to Calle Petritxol to check out Xocoa. On our way, we heard a giant commotion roiling though the alleys. We got to the mouth of Plaça de Sant Jaume, only to be blocked by a giant garbage truck trying to get by 2 riot police vans. (Almost no one drives in the close alleys of The Born and Barri Gothic except for the street sweepers and garbage men and women, who seem to be cleaning nonstop). It took the garbage truck about 5 minutes to get by, which seemed like forever because I REALLY wanted to see what was going on in the square. It was impossible to tell what the people were protesting, but eventually, a group of men were let into the building and everyone cheered.





Xocoa is a chocolate boutique that sells lots of great snacks and gifts and snacks to gift. We picked up a chili chocolate bar and a few truffles that were yummy. There are a few other chocolate stores on this street, making it worth a visit.

We checked out a few more stores and then mistakenly went to 4Gats. I say mistakenly because I had talked about this as a restaurant to avoid and J had only heard me talking about it, not what I said. She thought I wanted to go there and I thought she wanted to go there. There's a reason people need to communicate and that reason is to avoid restaurants like 4Gats. The restaurant is historic and the building interesting, but if you're going to go, I've heard the coffee and dessert route is the way to go. We got the fixed price lunch menu and a chance to sit up on the balcony looking down on the main dining room. The service was friendly, but the food was awful. I got a creamy pasta starter that was the best of everything we got. J's fish came with veggies that looked and tasted like they had been boiled for 2 days. We felt snookered, afterward, to realize that the desserts we had ordered were not part of the fixed menu as we had believed. Go here, take a picture, and then go someplace else for lunch.

We went back to our hotel and picked up our bags to go to Sitges. The train ride was about 35 minutes, and while it had been drizzly and cloudy in Barcelona, it was sunny in Sitges. We got off the train not knowing how to get to our hotel. Finding the information booth closed, we walked around Sitges, stumbled upon the Mediterranean Sea, and then lucked into finding our hotel, Parrots. After booking the hotel, I read up on Sitges and found it described as, "The internationally renowned sun-drenched gay mecca of Europe" and, "Gayer than the capital of Gayland". I saw "Is Sitges too gay?" and, "Too gay for families?" on a couple of message boards, and whatever that means, the answer is no. Yes, there are a plethora of gay men in Sitges. Unless you're a secretly gay Republican that pretends not to be gay by being virulently homophobic, you will have a lovely time in Sitges. That said, Parrots is a gay hotel with a sauna that just opened and J was the only woman down at breakfast, garnering a few inquisitive, but friendly looks.

We asked Douglas at the front desk where to go for dinner, and he sent us to, what he called, "The third best restaurant in Sitges", The Beach House. It was amazing and the portions were very generous. J got the watermelon salad and baked tortelini and I got the Cesar and Tuscan chicken. Everything was fabulous and, well, fabulous.



There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

Not much is open in Barcelona on Sundays, so we decided to complete the Gaudi tour by going up to Park Guell. There's a bus you can get in Plaza Catalunya that goes all the way to the entrance of the Parc. I'd suggest you take this because the Metro stop is almost a mile away and up a steep hill to boot. On the street leading into the Parc, there is a grocery with a crazy old man in it. I tried to buy a bottle of water from him, but as I was counting out the change, he snatched the bottle and put it back in the cooler. There wasn't anyone in line and he wasn't doing anything besides sitting behind the cash register. I'd like to blame this on my USA elitist sense of entitlement, but I literally hadn't done anything. JR asked him "En serio?" "En SERIO" was his curt reply. I'm not sure what I did to piss him off, but hopefully he goes out of business soon.

Parc Guell is lovely and filled with Gaudi's signature mosaics. There is a wide open terrace with a tiled bench all the way around, and a great view of the city. About a 10 minute hike further up brings you to the top of the parc and an even better view. We decided to take the metro back, but I wish we had taken the bus. Parc Guell is nice, but maybe skipable if you're short on time?



We took the Metro to Sagrada Familia and decided to walk around for a bit before going in. We walked around the corner to Alkimia to see about lunch, but along with being woefully underdressed, there is only one seating for lunch and we had missed it by about 2 hours. Walking down the block, you'd never guess that one of the 3 best restaurants in Barcelona was behind one of the doors. We'll have to check it out the next time we're in town. We instead lunched at a chain bageteria, which was fine if not twice as expensive as every other bageteria in the city.

Sagrada Família is an amazing site, steeples rising high above the neighboring buildings, it's visible from every somewhat elevated area of the city. We paid the 8 Euros entrance, admired the large carvings that adorn the outer walls, and went into what is essentially an empty shell of a cathedral with a hole in one entire side. The wait that everyone talks about is to ride an elevator to the top, which costs another 2 Euros. If you're not going to wait the 30-60 minutes to get to the top, it's probably not worth going in at all. Wait we did, though, and the view is amazing, both of the city, and the close ups of the different statues, designs, etc on the steeples and outer walls. It's difficult to explain, so maybe you ought to see it. There's a museum underneath the Cathedral which we skimmed, but it likely had something interesting. At least I hope so.



We took the Metro back to our hotel but stopped in La Colmena in Placa Angel for a delicious strawberry tort. I would have liked to have tried 7 other items, but that would have been imprudent.

We got back to the hotel and rested for a while before arguing about where to go for dinner. The dilemma was that very few restaurants in Barcelona are open on Sundays, and none that we were super excited to check out. We finally settled on Cuines de Santa Caterina which had the added benefit of being close to our hotel. The restaurant is in one of the much bigger buildings we were in in Spain and the menu was an eclectic mix of 4 different styles - Asian, Mediterranean, Italian and vegetarian. I had a fried rice that was tasty, though I couldn't tell if the crispy rice texture was on purpose or not and J's tofu curry was delicious. We had about 7 waiters who were constantly asking if everything was OK, but never returning with requested items (water, dessert, the bill...). A big open kitchen adds to the atmosphere.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

Barcelona is filthy with interesting architecture. Random apartment buildings are decked out with flamboyant patterns and colors, and of course, there is Antoni Gaudí. Gaudi's buildings are fascinatingly unique, featuring a distinct use of colors and shapes. You could go to Barcelona and not visit any of Gaudi's landmarks, but, then, you'd be kind of worthless.

Passeig de Gracia is a street north of Plaza Catalunya featuring 2 of Gaudi's buildings. Passeig de Gracia is a wide, charmingly European boulevard with high-end retail on either side. After a short walk you'll come to Casa Batlló on your left (but be sure to notice the buildings leading up to it, as well, interesting in their own right). We weren't sure how much Gaudi we needed in one day, so after seeing it was 16 Euros to enter, we took some pictures from the street and skipped it. Further down on the right is Casa Milà taking up about half a block. Seemingly more interesting, and half as expensive than Batlló, we decided to give it a shot. We had to wait in line for about 20 minutes before walking in to the oval shaped courtyard. There are 3 areas to check out at Casa Mila, the apartment furnished as it would have been when the building opened, the attic with its weight bearing brick arches, and most interesting of all, the roof. The roof features several oddly shaped chimneys on multiple levels and a 360 degree view of the city. I could have spent 2 hours on the roof just taking in all of the views.



Instead we journeyed on to La Sagrada Familia. We should have figured out a better way to get there than walking because, by that time in the day, we were drained and it's about 15 blocks or so, more when you get a bit lost. We got to Sagrada Familia and saw a sign announcing a 60 minute wait for the lift. That did it for us and instead of going in, we looked up at it from a couple different angles and then walked all the way back to our hotel. Again, not that far, but far enough at that point of the day.

And then the eating started. We had plans to meet Crystal and Dan later that evening at, "Her favorite wine bar in Barcelona" - which happened to be right in, "my favorite placa in Barcelona" - at Placa Santa Maria del Mar. We skipped the wine bar and instead went to Heladerias Tomo II for some gellato before dinner, I had brilliant chocolate in a mini tulip cone. The plan was to go to Tapas 24, but it was closed Sundays so we went to the Irish Pub next door for a drink and to figure out what to do next. We decided to head to Port Vell to Luz de Gas for waterfront tapas on a boat. To get there, we took the Metro, getting our first look at Barcelona's mass transit. And like just every mass transit system I've ever been on, it was faster, cleaner, and more convenient than the T.

Now Luz de Gas may play some of the most "lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, f*cked up playing" you'll ever hear, but it's an incredibly lovely spot and the food is delicious. We had the octopus, patatas bravas, pan y tomate, chorizo, and some great cava. And now I never have to eat octopus again. Which is nice.

After stuffing our faces with tapas, we decided to head back into The Born for dinner at Origen 99'9%. Dinner after so much tapas? Yes. Origen serves traditional Catalonian dishes with an eclectic flair. Unfortunately, and likely due to the truckers' strike, many of our first choices were unavailable. We'll have to try rabbit with chocolate another time. The cheese plate was great, as was the stuffed onion, as was the Crema Catalan. The fish we could have done without. Awesome atmosphere, too. After dinner we went back to Tomo II for more gellato, but they were closed. Sad.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

This day started fortuitously enough as I burned out our sound machine/alarm clock. You wouldn't think this was a big deal, but none of the hotels we stayed at had clocks in the room. 2 of them had bidets, though, which is an important lesson on priorities. After wandering around for a minute looking for a place to eat breakfast, we ended up at Taller de Tapas in The Born around Santa Maria del Mar which ended up being my favorite area of Barcelona. I ordered what seems to be Barcelona's civic meal, un bocadillo de jamon y queso and JR had a croissant.

Next stop, the Picasso Museum. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes, we were let in and started walking through the different rooms representing different eras of Picasso's painting. It was fascinating to see so much work by a single artist, but the museum was somewhat of a failure on an informational level. The descriptions on the walls of the first couple rooms were helpful and pointed out the important paintings in each room. As we moved forward, however, the descriptions became confused, describing paintings not being exhibited, or worse yet, paintings in rooms we had just seen. It was neat to see Picasso's work in other mediums such as printing and ceramics, and the illustrative representation of his playful relationship with his friend and secretary, Sabartes (doodle portraits on pinup posters and a portrait of Sabartes in a ruff!). The real treat of this museum, though was the special exhibit, Forgetting Velazquez. Las Meninas. "Las Meninas has been one of the most widely analyzed works in Western Painting" and the exhibit was a series of artists showing their interpretation of the painting in their own style culminating in Picasso's own multi-month 40-odd study of Las Meninas. The special exhibit made the museum worth it for me, though JR disagrees and suggests the whole thing.

After the museum, we did some more walking and wandering and ended up on the edge of Parc de la Ciutadella at an Argentinian place called El Foro. El Foro was notable for the presentation of its Gazpacho (a bowl of tomato soup and a long plate with chopped onions and 3 different types of peppers) and the salsa which, from what I could tell, was olive oil, oregano, pepper, and bay leaf mixed into deliciousness. Parc Ciutadella is a large park on the outskirts of the old city of Barcelona. There is green space mixed in with trees, ponds and giant sculptures. The zoo is on the grounds of the park, but we didn't visit. One exit of the Parc feeds out to the Arc de Triomf at the end of a long promenade. This is, apparently where the children go to light firecrackers with their grandmothers and the novice rollerbladers timidly hone their craft. One fellow was practicing jumping and turning around in mid air, almost falling every single time, I couldn't look away.

After almost going into the chocolate museum (an almost I wish we had repeated a week later), we walked back to the Cathedral area going into about 5 different chocolate stores. This is my kind of city. Before going into our hotel, we went to Chocolateria Valor and got chocolate drinks. I had a Chocolate Francesa, which was about the best thing I've ever had. Drinking chocolate is big time in Barcelona, but what do you do in the summer? Cold chocolate!!! Wow it was great. Want more. Now.

Our friends Abbie and David picked us up for dinner and we headed to Euskal Etxea for dinner. Euskal Etxea serves Pintxo, which seems like Basque Tapas to me. The main difference being most of the Tapas are laid out on the bar, served on a slice of baguette with a toothpick. The toothpicks are important because at the end, they're counted up and you pay per toothpick. This was great too! I missed the steak looking Pintxo, but I'm pretty sure I had quail eggs with mayo on some sort of ham. I ate more than I should have and it was still one of the cheaper dinners we had in Barcelona. Good times.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

Thanks for clicking on the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. There are 10 chapters total, listed at the end of this post. Check out the introduction for more information.

Admittedly, I haven't been on many airlines recently, or ever, but Iberia airlines seemed above average to me. The flight took off on time, which these days is almost all you can ask, and they actually served two edible meals. I realized as soon as I shut my cell phone off that I hadn't brought any type of watch and the vacation would be (excuse me) timeless. Ooof.

We landed in Madrid in what was the middle of the night for us and had a bit of trouble figuring out how to get to our connecting flight to Barcelona. The interesting architecture of Barcelona started with the ceiling of the Madrid airport and the way they filter light into the terminals. We landed in Barcelona and the doors in the back and the front opened to aid in disembarkation onto some buses for a trip across the airport to customs. There were 4 lines, 2 for EU residents and 2 for non-EU residents. Eventually all of the EU residents filter through and the 2 guys who had been checking the EU residents went on break. Down to 2 lines, the fast one and the slow one. Obviously, we're in the slow line. Excruciatingly, the guy seemed to be playing 20 questions with each person trying to get through. Not asking 20 relevant questions about border patrol related issues regarding importation of fruits and vegetables, but literally playing 20 questions. "Is it an animal?" "Is it a mammal?"

What we didn't know before we left was that the day of our arrival was also the day of an exciting, organized taxi strike. We didn't realize there was a strike going on until after we got to our hotel, but the line for the A1 Bus from the airport to the Plaça de Catalunya did seem quite long. As we got to the front of the line, there was a guy in a suit carrying a small Zara bag telling us to go to the unmarked bus behind the A1 bus. I point out the suit and the Zara bag because it struck me as utterly ridiculous. Mr. Bean-like. We were exhausted and he was speaking quickly, so we followed his direction and got on the bus. It dawned on me that we weren't on an official bus, this was just some enterprising dudes with a bus taking advantage of the taxi strike. Capitalism, it's electric!

We got to the Hotel Regencia Colon after a short walk and checked into our room that surprisingly had a view of the Cathedral and smelled of smoke for only a second when walking into the room. We slept for an hour before getting up to explore. And explore we did. We walked around the Cathedral, Barri Gotic, Ciutat Vella, down to the water, and up Las Ramblas to La Boqueria. Then we seemingly did most of it all again looking for a phone card or internet cafe or both to get in touch with some friends who were in town.

We connected with Crystal who had us meet her at Flaherty's to watch a EuroCup 2008 match between France and Holland. It was a strange experience to be jet lagged on our first night in Barcelona in an Irish Pub full of Dutch people (with a smattering of French people). It was all very continental. When The Netherlands scored (4 times in all), the place exploded, and beer got spilled on me. We weren't sure if we'd be able to sleep because of the jet lag, but all the walking we did had us asleep for 10 hours.

There are 10 chapters in the Free Barcelona Travel Guide. I hope you find them useful.
Introduction
Day 1: Barcelona to Boston: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa Milà
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada Família
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic

Map of where we went or wished we had.

Click here to blow out the map and get the full effect

I still don't know why I loved Barcelona, though the delivery on my favorite line, "Well, I wasn't using prig pejoratively" was impeccably timed. Unfortunately, no one I know has seen the movie, so it falls on deaf ears when I reference that line. I'd say, "Before 'Bottle Rocket', there was 'Barcelona'," but they came out the same year, so...

...But I don't mind reading about it when Bill Simmons is doing the writing. I agree with most of what he says most of the time and he has anywhere from one to three references per column that I wish I had written down before him because they're mostly perfect. Plus, like Peter Gammons and Sean McAdam, he's a Boston homer and about 75% of his columns are about Boston teams. When it comes to reading about basketball, I may as well be reading about the Celtics, right?

(This might be another column, but you know how the Righties incessantly complain about the "liberal" mainstream media without providing facts to support their claim? I think if I lived in another part of the country, I might complain about the so-called national sports media's Northeast/ Boston slant. I'm not going to do it, but a scientific survey of ESPN.com would probably prove a higher percentage of stories are written about the Red Sox-Yankees-Patriots than any other 5-8 teams combined. In acknowledging this bias, I feel like the millionaires who sit up in their castles pointing out world problems without taking any steps to correct them. It's so easy to do. But the view is great up here and I enjoy feeling like a millionaire sitting in my castle. Since I benefit from the bias, I'm not going to make a stink).

The most recent reason I owe Bill Simmons is his column last week was responsible for pointing me towards Paul Shirley's blog. I'm not sure it can actually can be considered a blog, since it was written over 5 days and I don't think there was any plan for it to be updated infinitely. I don't really know what the definition of a blog is, though, so call it whatever you want. Paul Shirley is a 27 year-old forward who fills the "Suns’ need for a warm body to keep the bench from tipping toward the coaches." He doesn't play much, and didn't actually play at all on the 5 game/ 8 day road trip in mid-March. He did, however keep a journal of his thoughts during the trip and the result is great. Bill Simmons said something like it fulfills the wish we all have of having a friend in the NBA and getting daily emails from him. (Personally, if I had a friend doing anything and sending me a daily email about it, I'd probably change my email address, but being able to go to his website to read at my own leisure would certainly keep our friendship intact.) Anyway, Paul Shirley probably doesn't have much of a grand future in the NBA, but judging by his writing, he'll probably end up OK whenever he blows out a knee or decides to hang it up for other reasons. Since I don't think any of the people reading this will actually click through to Paul's blog, I've grabbed a couple of the choicest quotations for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

-Paul reviews the beach in Spain

"The greatest thing about living near the water is that there is always something to do. Bored? Go to the beach. Can’t figure out what to do at the end of a first date? Go to the beach. Got a few knock-off sunglasses that need sold? Go to the beach. The only problem with my time in Spain was that the beach in Barcelona set the bar a bit high—because of the rampant toplessness."

-Paul on tattoos

"Tom Gugliotta has the worst tattoo in the NBA. The barbed wire on the bicep is bad enough to put him in the running; the fact that it is the dreaded “I thought I could get away with not having it complete the circumference of my arm” type puts him over the top. It is like wearing a tie that is not only ugly, but is a clip-on to boot. Ugly is at least forgivable; the clip-on aspect makes it reprehensible."

-Paul on the possibility of playing

"I began considering the possibility that there could very well be a bit of playing time in the offing and started paying at least cursory attention to what was going on in timeouts, in case Coach D’Antoni said something like, “From now on tonight, everyone will be shooting with his left hand. Deviation from this plan of attack will result in castration immediately following the game.” I would really hate to miss one of those instructions, come out firing, and because of my own mental lapse, ruin the rest of my life."

-Paul on being tired even after not playing

"When the game was over, I was fatigued, much like usual. It is difficult to explain, but it is exhausting to, over a two and a half hour period, keep oneself vaguely mentally prepared, yet relaxed enough to theoretically play basketball. Now, don’t get me wrong—it is not nearly as taxing as, say, playing 38 minutes and huffing and puffing up and down the court. There is, however, a little more to it than would first appear. Of course, as my dad would say, it still beats the hell out of digging ditches, so I won’t complain."

-Paul on meeting Magic Johnson in an exercise room

"We all wandered over and chatted with Mr. Johnson. He was gracious, kind, and charming, just like everyone says. I did notice that, when I introduced myself, he did not tell me his name. I, of course, know his name—the above paragraph would have been difficult to write without that knowledge. I do not know, however, what I am supposed to call him now. Magic? Seems a bit odd. Earvin? Seems a bit forced. It will be a dilemma that haunts me."

-Paul on the Atlanta Hawks

"Saying the Hawks are a bad basketball team is like saying that living in Beirut would be exciting—true, but not really the whole story. The Hawks are really, really bad."