The Many Faces of Barcelona – the good, the bad and the ugly

A drinking foutain

The Good ... and was there ever a lot of good.  What a beautiful city and well maintained, for the most part.  Before we dive into the architecture (and seriously, how could we not!!), let us start with a few little things we noticed.  The first thing that was very obvious to us was how well organized their train stations are – in the sense of how clean and orderly and well labelled they were.  This can also be said for the other two stations that we visited while in Spain.  It is impossible not to know where to go and when your train is coming.  Good for them and anyone visiting the city.  We also noticed how much construction was going on in and around the city: from roads, to railways to buildings.  And they say Spain is going through an economic downturn ... maybe someone should tell them J.  The last few things we noticed were the water fountains, the garbage cans and the street cleaners all over the city.  Now, we don’t mean the pretty fountains that we saw all over France but actual little fountains that you can use to wash your hands or as we did, refill your water bottle.  Brilliant!

As for the garbage cans, again, we don’t mean just a can for you to toss you garbage in – they had three large rounded metal containers one for garbage, one for paper/plastic and one for glass bottles.  And there was basically every block.  Again, just brilliant.  The street cleaners – who work in threes along with a cleaning truck - appear to be working around the clock.  This excludes  of course, the Barrio Gotico which seems to only get cleaned when it rains or someone pours water down from their balcony.    

 Ok, we know you’ve been waiting for it ... we’re going to talk about Gaudi.  I mean, you can’t talk about Barcelona without talking about Gaudi as he left his mark all over the city.  From Park Guell, which housed his residence for 20 years and is now a free public park (thanks to his donation) to La Sagrada Familia, which 128 years after construction began is still 15 years from completion.  There are also a dozen buildings/houses scattered throughout the city which bare his trademark unique architectural style which one has to see to believe and understand.  It is highly detailed and like a dream.   

We have to take a second here to talk about his masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia.   This structure is like nothing else in the world.  Standing in front of it you are awe-struck by the detail and by the pure randomness of its design.  There are fruit clumps atop of spires and alien like creatures (star trooper looking things) adorning one of the entrances.  Everywhere you look there is an awe-inspiring detail.   And that is just the outside of the cathedral.  Once you enter you are in for another marvellous experience.  It’s like you are standing in a concrete forest with the tree tops (which resemble large jewels more so than leaves) miles above you.   There’s also a crucifixion of Jesus (like none you have ever seen) floating above the floor.  With all of this detail and the cathedral is still 15 years from completion.  We could go on forever talking about this, but we’ll let the pictures linked below do the talking, so enjoy. 

Barcelona also has a waterfront and a beach that we did not investigate too closely and very good and cheap table wine at restaurants J. So, when in Barcelona, be sure to order table wine, as there is no need to spend four times as much for the other wines on the list (thank you Kume!). 

The Bad ... the urine smell in El Barrio Gotico and La Ramblas.  Although the gothic quarter could be quite stunning it is somewhat ruined by all of the sketchy people standing about and the predominant smell of urine.   La Ramblas is probably the biggest tourist trap in Barcelona and is just pure sketch with the weirdest buskers in the world.  I mean cat woman and  a man in a diaper putting baby powder on his behind!?!?!?  Funny but who wants to pay to see that.   La Rambla del Raval, which is parallel to the main one is a much nicer walk with families and kids and would be perfect if it wasn’t for the neighbourhood it’s in which is known for its drug peddlers and prostitutes.   Which brings us to ....

The Ugly ... sketchy sketchy sketchy sketchy men, standing on the side of the street, eating pepas (sunflower seeds) and peddling drugs.   And we’re sorry, we have to say this, but what is with the grungy hippy hick (due to the terrible haircuts) style that the hipsters in Barcelona have chosen to embrace! ?  This is just plain old ugly.  It’s one thing to be hip but do you have to look so dirty grungy in the process? 

Before we conclude this long post, we want to recommend a well priced (mid-range) and perfectly located hotel: Best Western Hotel Medicis.  Each room had a balcony, large bathroom, flat screen and a very comfortable room.  The hotel is walking distance to Park Guell (25 minutes) and Sagrada Familia (7 minutes) and a little further down the road you hit Gaudi’s famous houses and La Ramblas (45 minutes).  Very friendly staff and free Wi-Fi.  Can’t go wrong. 

To close it off, whoever gets a chance should definitely visit Barcelona and enjoy all the beauty (and great food) it has to offer.  Also, if you are only there for a few days, we highly recommend paying for the hop on and off city tour bus for one of those days as you will get a chance to see all of the sites around this massive city. 

Here is a link to some of our pictures (password: messi):  http://photobucket.com/barcelona_OCT2010

Self explanitory

The lizard at Park Guell

Pedestian street around the corner from our hotel

The Starship Trooper looking aliens

The tree tops inside the cathedral

One of Gaudi's buildings (La Pedrera)

Food in Our 2nd Moon

France:  While in France we really didn’t eat out much due to the astronomical cost of French bistros and restaurants; unless you count the hundreds and hundreds of pastries we had on the go.  Well that’s not really true, we also had a shwarma, which according to Lonely Planet and Lenny Kravitz (we know… pretty random), is the best in the world.  Our opinion is that it’s just ok and the one we had in NY was much better.  However we did have classic French fast food in a form of Gyros or merguez  sausage and fries stuffed in a wrap.  Now that is some yummy stuff! 

We also had a meal in a very posh French bistro which only served sandwiches,  cheese platters, wine and coffee.  Nothing special at all. We later discovered that this bistro was not for eating but for being seen in (if you are a writer or a wanna be writer). 

What we can comment on is the pounds and pounds of cheese, wine, bread and dried sausage that we did have.  So we had cheese in various shapes, sizes and forms,  all of which were very delicious and didn’t stand a chance with either one of us.  To give you guys an example,  you can get about 350g of double cream brie cheese for about 2 Euros.  We spent close to 20 Euro on this cheese alone during our 12 days there.  The scary thing is that this is not the only cheese we managed to inhale J.  Moving on to the amazing dry sausage that we had for breakfast, lunch and in most cases dinner.  You can get it plain, you can get it encrusted with cracked pepper; there are skinny ones, fat ones, short ones, long ones…. Perverts we know what you are thinking!!! 

Now we move on to the dessert portion of this post, or at least we will pretend that we only ate this for dessert.  Pastries are as French as waiving a white flag J  (totally kidding here but come on we couldn’t resist).   But seriously, the French have mastered the art of pastries and they are definitely not afraid to share it with anyone willing to try some.  There are pastry shops on every corner in Paris and our favourite, “Paul”, was right around the corner from us (how convenient, we know).  The apple flan cake, the brioche, the beignet avec chocolat, and of course the crepes.  After trying all these very tasty treats repeatedly we have come to a conclusion: that Nutella is the most used and sold France.  It might originate from Italy but the French are definitely its highest consumer (we mentioned in our previous post about the 25kg jar that is used in most creperies).  To continue the obsession that the French have with chocolate we have to mention the rows and rows of chocolate cereal found in their supermarkets.  You can have your Cornflakes, Cheerios, Bunches of Oats, Muesli and Quinoa and any other cereal with chocolate.  But not just chocolate, you can have it with double chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate chunks, chocolate chips, chocolate swirls or all in one!  Crazy but amazing.  Add some strawberries and you are in heaven. 

A very special thanks goes to Kim and her family for making us a phenomenal meal at their home.  When you have great people and great food it’s amazing how much booze you can go through J.  Once again thank you guys for being amazing hosts and give lost of kisses to the beautiful princess.

Spain:  We had some great and inexpensive dinners out here.  But after France it’s hard not be inexpensive.  The Spanish are known for their tapas and paella.  They definitely delivered on both and then some.   What we would like to give a special mention to is their pastries.  Ok do you notice a pattern forming here? J  On our first night in Girona we tried a churro con crema and panellets de pinyo.  WOW.  As it was our duty to report on the best of the best we kept sampling these as we walked through Barcelona.  And it’s a good thing we did as we came across the God of all churros con crema.  Please see pictures NOW. 

 The best way to describe the churro con crema is to picture a hybrid between a donut and a croissant stuffed with cream.  Or just look at the pictures above.  Another thing that the Spanish taught us was that you can mix wine with lemonade (tinto de verano) and not puke.  It is very tasty and very refreshing.  Since our parents are reading this we didn’t only stuff ourselves with sweets and alcohol, we had a lot of fruit and greens along with them ;)



panellets de pinyo



tinto de verano y una cerveza

One of our spreads at home

Girona - A Hidden Gem

The main reason we went to this city was to cut our trip to Figueras to see Dali’s museum in half (and because Ryan Air flew to Gerona J ). We only spent an afternoon here but we are so thankful that we did. Gerona is small, quaint and full of history: with it’s old Jewish quarter, massive cathedral and many little bridges crossing the river that flows through it. It was a very youthful town, we guess due to the university located there - with many many many shops, café’s and bakeries (where we had our first penellets de pinyo and churros con crema but more about these in another post). If you are ever in or near Barcelona, this little town 40km north of Barcelona is well worth a visit, particularly with Spain’s clean and efficient train service (Go RENFE!).

The World of Salvador Dali (1904 - 1989)

We had the pleasure of getting to know Salvador Dali’s art quite a bit better on this trip - before this we really only knew him as the eccentric melting clock painter (sorry for our ignorance). We have to say, we now have a new found appreciation and respect for his eccentricity.

Our first Dali encounter was in Belgrade at an exhibition entitled “Divine Worlds” where we saw hundreds of his graphic illustrations for two of his largest works: Biblia Sacra and Dante’s Divine Comedy. These illustrations were really quite something and were composed of many layers of colour. Here is an example:


This is an example of the progression of a drawing.  Each slide shows an additional layer of colour

Our second encounter was in his home town of Figueras at the Dali Museum in his former home. This was something else. Some compositions and montages were really strange where as others were just a little strange. But really, we were more than impressed and have to say that so far, this was our favorite museum. His graphic art which lined one hallway was extremely odd and hilarious at the same time. His paintings had such a great range - from very detailed and one would say very normal for Dali to one’s more in tune with the Dali we knew before, unusual and unexpected. Here is a picture of the museum from the back side. 

Click on this link to see some examples of the art at the museum: http://photobucket.com/dali_2010 (password: gala).