Historical Note
This was first written while we were still in Spain; we’re back in China now, so this is a back posting.
Day 14: Barcelona
Today we did a lot of random stuff. Mainly this is because we are both quite worn out and, thanks to some idiot on the cruise ship, both have some degree of head colds. Our day started at a lazy 9:30 am as we dragged ourselves out of bed. The weather was hard to read at first, but the one thing we were sure of was that it was going to be cold. I remember mentioning to Toni how weird it was not to have any company during our explorations, we really started to miss the social aspect of cruising.
Street stalls outside the Santa Caterina Markets
Dressed in at least four layers of clothes, we left our room and headed out to the Metro stop (Rocafort) near our hotel (Hotel Villa Emilia). Switching lines at Catalunya station, we hopped off the Metro at the Jaume I metro stop to begin a walking tour. Our first stop was a coffee shop called “Cappuccino” on via Laietana (near Plaza Angel) just opposite the metro exit, which had the most excellent hot chocolate and coffee we’ve had all trip. So good in fact that we ended up going back there the next day!
We then proceeded on our walking tour to Mercat Santa Caterina (a large gourmet food marketplace), which was closed. Well, this minor setback didn’t throw us off our game, and instead we browsed some local stalls which had been erected outside. Then we retraced our steps (somewhat) and headed off to our next destination: the Barcelona Chocolate museum.
Chocolate Asterix & Tintin
The museum was….open! So we paid the entrance fee (4.50 € pp) which included a chocolate bar each. Inside were many statues and scenes made out of chocolate – an impressive array. There was also an audio visual presentation, though it was in Spanish, so we didn’t understand it very well. Some of my favourites included two Asterix displays, a Tintin display, Ben Hur, Chichen Itza, and a chocolate Black Madonna (we’d just seen the original the previous day!).
Chocolate Bambi
After we’d walked the length of the museum, we exited and continued our walking tour. Unfortunately for us, the rest of the places were closed, so almost by accident we managed to find another objective for our day – the Pablo Picasso museum. We found out later that on the previous day the queue for the museum was very long; it turns out it was free admission on the first Sunday of each month. This day, the queue was less than five people.. but you had to pay to enter.
Streets of Barcelona | Outside the Picasso museum
We anted up the required Euros, and made our way to the first level. What we found was a fairly comprehensive display of works by the artist including lots of supplementary exhibits – notes, rough drafts, photos and a running (written) commentary from periods of Picasso’s life. In particular there was a section directly comparing the work of French artist Degas to Picasso’s own work, showing where Picasso had ‘borrowed’ or outright stole Degas’ original works. Clearly Degas had a large influence over some of Picasso’s early work.
Inside the museum | Streets of Barcelona
Then, something happened and Picasso started to go very abstract. At a time when cubism and fauvism started to form a movement within modern art, Picasso was at the fore of the scene. His works moved away from the traditional life drawings (in particular his early work with ballerinas) and moved into conceptual cubism. All of this is well documented in the museum, the only downside of the whole place being the ban on photographs!
We probably spent an hour or two wandering the halls amidst a largish number of other visitors (it was busy but not too bad) before we found our way back to street level and exited. The building housing the museum was also quite interesting, it seemed like some kind of former palace with some very French renaissance influenced rooms, and beautiful staircases. We shot a photo in the middle of the first floor (outside).
Barcelona beachfront | Inside the ice bar
Our next destination was one of Toni’s initial goals for the trip – the Barcelona Ice Bar. I fail to recall how she learned about it, I think perhaps she had seen it mentioned in the travel guide. It’s the only ice bar in the world situated on a beachfront, apparently. So we caught the metro down to Barcelona’s beautiful beachfront which, even on a cold day, looked warm and inviting.
Ice Bear
We strolled along the boardwalk before finding stairs down to the beach itself. The path along the beach is lined with bars and restaurants, it was not too hard to locate the ice bar here. It cost us fifteen Euros each to enter, but included a free vodka drink each. We donned special jackets and entered the cold bar room. Ironically, despite being –12’C, it really didn’t seem so cold by contrast to the weather outside! We spent a few minutes checking out all the ‘furniture’ which was all made of ice.
Also inside was a large statue of Gaudi’s famous Segrada Familia, a polar bear and a ‘I survived the Barcelona Ice Bar’ display. There were three different places to sit, the seats covered with animal furs or sheepskin, and several places to put glasses – all made of ice, including the glasses/cups! We were served our drinks from behind the ice bar, and began to watch ‘Happy Feet’ (the animated movie about penguins) which seemed fitting, given the surrounds.
I suspect we spent at least twenty minutes before we decided to leave. We shot a number of photos (the cameras were good sports to work in more challenging temperatures) although I was worried about the effects on the glass lenses of transitioning from –12’C to the outside. Luckily, no harm occurred.
Gaudi’s efforts on Via Diagonal
The effect of drinking vodka and returning to the outside, coupled with our bodies’ battling the onset of head colds was.. interesting. It felt like someone had hit our various joints with baseball bats. We slowly made our way back to the Metro and went to the Diagonal metro stop. Here, we exited and began walking down Via Diagonal, observing a number of Antoni Gaudi’s famous buildings which we’d observed the previous day when returning from Monserrat.
We walked all the way to Catalunya Place, enjoying the sunshine and the clean air. There were a few people walking along the road, but it was not crowded. Feeling a bit weak and tired, we dropped into the Metro again and made our way to the Ungell stop (one away from our hotel) and decided to eat lunch near the hotel. We ate a nice Spanish meal at a restaurant called Lido not far from our hotel, before walking back and taking some well deserved rest. Before we hit our room, we went up to the top floor (seventh) to take in the beautiful terrace bar, which had great views and ambiance.
A beautiful day in Barcelona
A little later in the evening we took to the streets to locate some dinner. In Spain, they like to eat late (which usually suits us) and we found an all you can eat Chinese buffet (how ironic?) where we took the opportunity to eat some western style Chinese food, and to surprise the staff by speaking to them in Mandarin. Our waitress was actually from WenZhou (in Zhejiang province, where HangZhou is the capital).
Thus endeth our second last day..
Can I have ice with that drink?
More coming!