Following our tour of the Palau, we headed for the Born Ribera. Just past the tiny 12th Century Marcus Chapel, we found the Picasso Museum, housed in 6 former palaces. (No photos allowed. Sorry.) We spent some time with Picasso, and then wandered through the Barri de Sant Pere some more. Thanks to Frommer's Great Walks of Barcelona, we found small churches, former homes of textile barons, examples of sgraffito designs on buildings, and Farmacia Padrell, the oldest pharmacy in Barcelona - founded in 1562.
We'd seen the Santa Caterina market at a distance the day before, but I wanted to get a closer look. It was sort of like the Essex Street Market on the lower East Side--lots of meat and produce, as well as some dining areas. The roof is covered with brightly colored tiles, though this isn't the best photo. It's cute of Eddie, though. :)
By this time, we were starving, so we headed back to La Rambla. But we couldn't seem to find any place that looked good to us. Fortunately, Ed's Pfizer colleague and Frommer's had both recommended Cal Pep, a tiny tapas place near the Placa del Palau. So we hung a left at Christopher Columbus and went on the hunt.
It was a bit of a hike, and we didn't have a good map. I tried asking directions at a bodega, but to no avail. The Barcelonans are incredibly friendly, but I don't think he had any idea what I was asking him. We managed to find it, though, and after a bit of a wait (there are 18 seats in total), we had a great tapas lunch and followed by a signature dessert.
After lunch, we headed across the square to a little Irish pub called the Lennox Bar. It had a Guinness sign out front, and on this trip, that was enough to get us to visit. We had a beer there and decided to pub-crawl our way home. So mapless, we wandered the streets, heading in the general direction of the Casa Fuster. We managed to find Flaherty's (another Guinness sign), which was one of the bars that had been on our soccer-watching list. It was quiet when we arrived, but once the bachelor party showed up, complete with groom-dressed-as-baby-in-footie-pajamas, we figured we'd head out. Our final stop was the London Tavern (Guinness sign!), where we sat at the bar and watched 80s videos I haven't seen in about 30 years. A nightcap at the hotel bar, and we were done for the night.
Day four was all about soccer. Or football, since we were in Spain. The top of Ed's to-do list was touring Camp Nou, the home of the Barcelona football club. Saturday was the nicest weather day we had - the high was supposed to get into the high 50s or low 60s, so we decided to walk the 4 kilometers from the hotel.
98,000 seats
Happy pilgrim. :)
They even have a chapel in the stadium.
A really bad photo of the first cup Barcelona ever won
By the time we'd spent a couple of hours at Camp Nou, we were exhausted, so we cabbed it back to the hotel. After a quick rest, it was time for lunch. We tried to get into Bar Mut again, but to no avail. They were booked solid. We found a little place called Clare's (there should be an accent on that e) and had a great lunch sitting in the window, watching the world go by. This is a really good wine, by the way, if you can find it here.
Casa Mila, aka La Pedrera, was only a few blocks away, and we had time to kill so we decided to check it out. I'm so glad we did. As impressive as it is from the outside (see Day 1), the inside and the courtyards are stunning. Everything is so colorful! We were able to explore a period apartment, as well as interior courtyards...
...and the roof (don't those chimney tops look like Stormtroopers??)
The two tiled arches frame the two most famous churches in the area. The Sagrada Familia (that photo wasn't good) and Sagrada Cor on Mount Tibidabo (below).
Broken wine bottles as ornamentation
Vaulted ceilings
And my favorite space of all
The second thing on the soccer/football to-do list was an actual game. Since Barca was out of town, we decided to try for tickets to see Espanyol. So after rushing back to the hotel to layer up (I didn't bring my winter coat, and I've been to night games before), we hopped in a cab and headed to "Campo del Espanyol". We got great seats, and we got to see them win for the first time in 2016.
The stadium only holds 40,500 people and it was by no means full, but it was the loudest stadium I've ever experienced. And you can smoke in there!
The problem with taking a cab to a game is finding one to take you home. I had screen-shot the subway instructions we needed to be able to get home on the metro, but I hadn't thought to map out how to get to the station. So we did what New Yorkers do - we followed the crowd, assuming they were all headed to public transportation. Not so much. We ended up first in a motorcycle/Vespa parking lot, and then in a dark dead end car parking lot. After wandering around completely at a loss for about 30 minutes, we ran into a guy who told us the metro was too far away and to go back to the stadium and "turn left" to find a cab. Which, amazingly, worked! As soon as we got back to the stadium, the cops opened up the streets and an open cab magically appeared. One or both of our guardian angels must have been keeping an eye out.
After we got back to Casa Fuster, we went off in search of dinner. (Wandering and searching seem to be a theme with us. We either need to plan better or I need to buy a thesaurus. Probably the latter.) We walked up the Passeig de Gracia, looking into windows, finding lots of sushi places, strangely enough, and finally found the Bou Cafe. Ed's jamon iberica sandwich was perfection; my mushroom croquettas were good but nowhere near as amazing. But the food was hot and filling, and the waitress was charming. She gave us an aperitivo that was the nectar of the gods. I wish I'd made her write the name of it so that I had some idea what it's actually called. The bottle came from her fridge, and it had no label. It had something to do with "oro", but even after asking her three times what it was called, I was still ignorant. Like the bay leaf aperitivo we had in Italy (that I'm still kicking myself for not buying a case of), I have a feeling I'll be regretting the not-asking for years to come.
Thus ended our lovely four-day trip. We loved Barcelona and are definitely planning a return trip. Ed told his dad that Barcelona is in his top 3 cities in the world. I agree completely.
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