Barcelona Day 2 – Gaudí Day

Beautiful day for looking at the architecture of Barcelona’s Eixample (expanded) area. Gaudí’s Casa Milá….see the people on the top?….by the fancy chimneys? (Star Wars Storm troopers?)

  More buildings on the same street.  
A few scary creatures on a Gothic building….St George and the Dragon are on either side of the door. 

 Then, of course, there is the Segrada Família, still not finished and probably never will be. There seem to be 2 entrances and as you can see by SOME of those waiting to get in……we pressed on after circling the building and just looking. This is the original side with the nativity. To the eye the facade seems to  be melting.

  And this is the newer facade. I think stone masons have job security. 
No kidding…..this is only about half of those waiting to get in on this side.

We started the day with a trip to the bakery and ate in the square before having a coffee; only 1 of us had this biggie….the other had 2 tiny ones with chocolate filling. For lunch we found a quiet tapas place. 

It has been a great trip and we have been so lucky weather wise. Lots of great people, food and scenery. Hope you have enjoyed the blog; it has been fun and challenging to compress each day down to a few comments and photos.

 

Barcelona Day 1

Hopped the train from the burbs and connected to the metro system at Plaça Espanya and toured the Old Town section.  

   
 Barcelona is indeed a beautiful city with many places of architectural interest. We had lunch at a tiny place….a “follow the suits” place. (Local business people know where the food is good.) 

  
There is the big Rambla in Barcelona, but this is OUR Rambla here in Sant Boi…. 

 Wednesday we will return to the city to see the Gaudí buildings. 

Goodbye Mountains, Hello City

The hotel in Siurana was delightful; by far the most expensive place we stayed in the whole trip. Calculating with the current exchange rate, the cost was $126. Just $3 more than the Holiday Inn Express at the San Antonio airport. AND the breakfast at a HIE is nothing like this; Spain in such a bargain!!!  I have to share more shots from Siurana; we stayed until about noon. The contrast to Sunday’s crowds was amazing. There were no more than 10 of us visitors this morning.

  And the breakfast????? (top 2 photos)  Holy cow, it was brunch! This little hotel is so well run and staffed. We dropped the car at the airport after an easy drive, took a cab to our hotel and a note on the door…..back in 1 hour. OK, when did you leave????  We sat up the street and had a drink at a little restaurant and after 45 minutes, went back and were about to use the telephone number he had left, and he walked up. After we check in, we went across the street to a very neat little restaurant for a snack; wood fired pizza oven and the salad was terrific. We are in the burbs, on a pedestrian street in a tiny hotel. Very nice room, no breakfast served, but there is a little cafeteria next door…..perfect! Taking the train/metro into the city tomorrow. Going to be such a contrast to where we have been.

Siurana Sunday

First stop this morning was the “big” town of  Cornudella for a coffee and to stop in the pastry shop where we saw this a few days ago, but did not think we needed it…….

Wow! thin crust with chocolate and assorted nuts. Delicious! After I ordered it, guess what? The same 2 little ladies that we have seen at coffee here everyday walked in! They were delighted to see us, had to check on my cut and bid us farewell for the final time. They had already had their coffees, so the place was very quiet today. We drove up and up to Siurana, the parking lot was packed….one place left and we took it. Sunday is a big day for city dwellers to get out here and hike, rock climb or just enjoy the beauty of the mountains. And we were looking back at La Morera….about 10 miles away.

    
 So, here is the legend: This fortification was the last stronghold of the Moors in Catalunya (1157). It was about to be defeated by the Christians because of a snitch, and the queen, rather than suffer defeat, chose to ride her horse off the edge of the cliff. The horse’s instinct kicked in, and he stopped, but she fell to her death. Supposedly the horse’s hoof prints can be seen in the stone and on some evenings her ghost can be seen walking the streets. 

We had a great lunch, just ordered main courses and desserts. 

 
This is a better photo of the dessert called “Chocolate Textures”…..it was wonderful!

  

And then there were the busses…..we could not believe a full sized tour bus was parked in the road near the parking lot. Glad we did not meet him on one of the curves! As the day warmed up, we walked back up to the parking lot to get rid of our jackets (hotel room not yet ready) and we saw this mess: 

 And the it got worse as a car came up from the area below.

  
Amazingly they worked it out as the one on the right was ready to leave, the one on the left managed to squeak past the other, waited and then backed into his space. 

Monday we will spend some time here in Siurana as we will probably be the only ones here and maybe a stop in Prades on our way to drop the car at the airport. We are spending 3 nights in the burbs of Barcelona and plan to take the train/metro into the city. What a shock it will be after spending nearly a month in places of a few hundred residents and sometimes less than that.

A Most Quiet Saturday

Sunrise….GORGEOUS! 

 Mostly  cloudy today; we were told one road in the area was closed today, but we did not ask why as we only planned to drive the 5 miles to Cornudella for lunch. When we arrived there “our” parking area was full and the only place we found to park was on the far end of town along the road. People everywhere. What was going on? As we started walking to the center we heard a roar of cars going fast….then they came by….a road rally. Went to the restaurant where we planned to eat….sorry but full today with reservations. As we walked down a street, we saw a sign to the other one in town, so we walked following the signs and struck gold. It was delicious! 

  How many dogs in little cases do we see in the US in restaurants?  The woman kept giving him little bits of food. He was dressed up for the occasion in a red sweater. Now, our meal which included a bottle of Montsant wine.  
 This morning in La Morera we saw this neat carving on a house and this cat guarded the street while we sketched. His home is inside that doorway; all the old doors have little holes cut at the bottom for the cats. One does not see many living rodents.

Saturday night time changes here in Europe and Sunday we have another moving day for a one night stay; it is a whole 10 miles away, but not easy to get to. We see the lights across the valley at night (about 5 of them) and the place has a very interesting legend. More on that tomorrow.

Big Day

We started the day at the clinic. I walked in at 9:50, said I had an appointment at 10, and was told to go to room #4, they were waiting for me…..not like home where we would sit and wait for at least 20 minutes. Nurse Ricard was waiting, spoke only Catalán, but I got the important instructions, stitches removed easily, and by 10:05, we were on our way to Cortatados and tiny crossaints again. Same 2 women there again with a different third woman, who asked if we were from London or Amsterdam….amazed that we were Americans. I told them I had had my stitches removed, they were delighted and we left with big waves and “A Dio”….Catalán for “adios.” We drove to Porrera where we stayed in 2013 since we were already half way there and it is a neat village. What makes the Priorat wines unique is that the soil is really just crushed up shale. The monks at Escaladei are the ones who figured out how to grow grapes in it.

 There is a really good restaurant at the top of the village and our first order of business was to walk up there to see if they were opened today……nope, but a sign that their small place in the Plaça was open. So, that is where we lunched. I had a goat cheese salad….nada mas! But the menu of the day was good for LDM. 

 The kids were with their parents and grandparents, from Switzerland, and the kids were just great. They played Old Maid while waiting and the girl with cards over her face should never play poker…..her expressions give away the cards she holds.

We have seen some funny signs, but  restaurant’s restroom signs take the cake. Also one great parking job today in Porrera. 

  

Escaladei Day

Beautiful again today….breakfast not until 9:00 here at this hotel. Holy Cow! But sun is not up until after 8 so, it’s Ok. Great croissants right out of the oven; worth the wait. We visited Escaladei Monestary today. Fantastic and much bigger than it looks from the entrance. One gets no clue that it is there until attival. We were pretty much alone until a tour bus arrived. We could not believe a tour bus could negotiate the road there, especially the last Km as it is a one laner for sure! Of course he got stuck leaving as someone with a car like ours (Seat Leon) had blocked the narrow road so he could not make the turn. Bus riders were going from one place to another asking who had such a car. Truthfully, there were only 3 establishments to check.

  They recreated the monks quarters, which are the photos on the left side below. These monks were of the Carthusian order, had taken a vow of silence, ate alone except at noon on Sunday, worked, meditated and studied.  Escaladei dates from the 10th century. These monks figured how to grow grapes in the shale soil and make wine…they taught people who moved nearby and this is the origin of the Priorat wine. It is very good; the name comes from the Prior of the church.  
There is a tiny town I km away with a winery and a really good little restaurant. The owner is hostess, waitress, cook and server. We had a good conversation with her after everyone else (all 7 of them) had left. She is a real fireball! 

  

(Lunch restaurant bottom left.)
 We drove the 5 miles to the local clinic and made an appointment for tomorrow to remove stitches, then had a cortado with a treat at a small cafe and the 2 ladies facing us chattered non stop. The third woman just listened.  We saw the 2 again on the way back to the car and they were still chattering; maybe we will see them again tomorrow.

Two more photos of the entrance to Escaladei…..pretty dramatic with Montsant behind and the scale is amazing. The brothers were great builders.

 

   
Then there was this cute guy and a shot of La Morera which is hard to find beneath huge ol’ Montsant. Can you see it?  

 

Moving Day

Wednesday was moving day and after 3 weeks in the Pyrenees, we left them behind, bidding farewell to Florita and family with hugs and kisses. They laughed hard at our photos of our light lunch of Tuesday. We chose our route and left Tálarn. The Pyernees did not disappoint us as we left through another beautiful, deep gorge. (excuse typo…..Route…I got A’s in spelling.)

 We had numerous opportunities for wrong turns in our 105 mile journey, but we only had to go around one circle 2 times to make sure we were making the right choice….not bad! We crossed a large area of farm land and then climbed the Montsant range. It looked a lot like Santa Fe with red soil/rock and pine trees. Beautiful but narrow road and no photo ops. We found a little place along the “highway” for lunch. We walked in and I thought, no way they are serving lunch….WRONG! Daughter, about 10, brought our menu and Mama took our order, cooked and served us a delicious lunch. 

 We arrived in La Morera de Montsant….spectacular! This photo is a tiny part of the wall of rock on this face. It is gorgeous and people like to rock climb here…..we are skipping that activity.

 We have a hotel room the size of the previous apartment, but without a kitchen corner, so it feels very spacious. We have a small balcony with this being a part of the view. Stars have to be fantastic. 

In 2013 we saw Montsant mountain from Porrera but had no idea how rugged the mountains between here and there were. One more thing….there is a small bar here and we felt we had earned a glass of the famous Montsant wine (more on that later) so we ordered a glass of local wine. Cost? Per glass…1 € or $1.14. Less expensive that a cortado café.

 

Last Day in Tálarn

Started off cloudy again today, but we went to Orcau anyway. Pretty dramatic setting for their castle and the town of 19 people. There is also an old settlement across the ravine that is abandoned. I saw the kids coming home last night in a beautiful tour bus. 

  
We took a walk outside of town and saw our apartment since we had rolled out the awning during lunch. After yesterday’s gigantic meal, we decided to have a very small one today on our patio. 

 
  The sunset was spectacular! 
Wednesday we move again, to the Montsant and Priorat wine regions. There are many tiny villages in the area and the weather is to be sunny and warm the whole time. 

Monday Villages

We made a small excursion today up another valley visiting several small places. We thought they were void of people, but we saw residents in them, so we were wrong. There was no shortage of cats.

   
This morning we met Florita; she is delightful and after hearing why I am banged up she said, “you need anything, you say me!” She brought a brace from the kitchen since she thought the swollen hand was from a wrist problem. I told her I was fine. We met the rest of the family/staff over cortados and then made our tour and returned for lunch. And What a lunch it was!

    
 OK…..Companions….I cannot even do English any more and I do not want to redo the above collage….I have sketches to finish! I am covering the stitches with a little gauze and some tape. People do stare, but do not ask what happened. That is one difference between Spain and Italy; in Italy I would be explaining many times a day…..here only if I choose.