Barcelona

We returned a week ago from our cruise to Spain and Portugal.  My computer died while we were away so this report is much later than intended.  For those of you who may follow in our footsteps (or in our wake) I offer the following:

We took our favorite sailing ship (meaning with sails!): the Windstar. Only 120 passengers, 100  crew.  The map of the itinerary is shown on this map. Click on list of icons on the left to locate each city.

Overall the 3 must see highlights of the trip were:

• The INTERIOR of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia (“Sacred Family”) Cathedral in Barcelona.
• The sprawling Moorish castle “Alhambra” in Grenada. (A world heritage site.)
• The Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon.

     

I’ll cover the latter two and other sights from the cruise in future posts.  This one focuses on Barcelona.

Barcelona:

To get in the Barcelona mood, before the trip I read worldwide bestseller "The Shadow of the Wind" by Zafon.  (Thanks for the recommendation Steve.) 


Because Robin had a conference in Chicago before we left, we only had a day and a half in Barcelona before embarkation.  (You need at least 3 days to scratch the surface of Barcelona.)

The best Flights to Europe are overnight red eyes.  Iberia was the only airline that offered a reasonable price for an itinerary where you return from a different city than the one you fly to.  (Delta actually quoted a higher price for one way to Barcelona that a Barcelona return ticket???) There is a 6 hour time difference between NYC and Barcelona.  The outbound flight was actually an American Airlines codeshare.  The food was as good as any I’ve ever had on a plane.  But if you want to charge your phone, you need a DC car charger.  Our flight was delayed 3 hours at JFK for a plane switch, so we didn’t get to our hotel in Barcelona until 11:00 AM.

Because my hip was still gimpy from surgery 2 months before, I found online a pedicab service in Barcelona that would pick up and return to our hotel.  Also the main sights are many blocks apart so this is quicker than walking but more fun than navigating subways or buses.  These are nothing like the pedicabs you see in New York.    They have electric assist propulsion and a sun roof to keep out the rain: we did have a little drizzle in Barcelona (the rest of the trip was sunny.  Temperatures were generally in the 60s all week: trust me, you don’t want to do a lot of sightseeing in Spain in the 90’s of summer.)  We did 3 hours on Saturday and 2 on Sunday: about $30/hour. 

If you are in Barcelona for a short stay it is absolutely imperative that you do this.

I had factored the possibility of a flight delay, and knew a room in the hotel would not be ready when we arrived, so I reserved the pedicab for 11:00AM.  It was there waiting when we arrived.  Amazingly our “driver” (pedaler?) was an unemployed architect steeped in local knowledge and culture: perfect!  His name is  Santiago (Santi) Torrent: santi.torrent@gmail.com

The main sights in order of importance are:

1. Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia (“Sacred Family”) Cathedral.

 
Seeing the INTERIOR of this building was for me a stunning experience.  I was speechless.  And I don’t mean that in some metaphorical sense.  I could not speak because I felt that if I tried to form a word I knew I would burst into tears.  The grandeur, the column and other structural shapes, and unexpected bright whiteness of the building induce awe.  I had seen pictures of the exterior and was fascinated by Gaudi’s unusual structural system, but have to say I didn’t expect to personally love the building.  On the outside it’s dark and gothic and encrusted with religious imagery and gargoyles, with 4 facades in different styles (only 3 are finished).  But the interior overshadows all that. 

1. We went on Saturday morning so there were long lines to buy tickets, but Santi knew that you can buy tickets for a small premium at most banks for specific times.  So we were able to go right in.

2. Gaudi’s La Pedrera (quarry) apartment house. 

Also known as Casa Mila (owner’s name).  I learned that its stone façade was mounted in rough cut form and chiseled in place to an amazing smoothness notwithstanding substantial texture to achieve the sinuous curves unique to each level.  We took a tour which was very valuable to see the roof decks (fabulous cast and tiled chimneys and stairwells), and that the balconies (all different) are made from scrap metal.  Attic level (built as a series of centenary arches housing an interesting Gaudi Museum), a 3000 SF apartment with original kitchen, bath and furnishing from 1910, The first story exhibition space which was a full floor owners apartment (but we had no time to see this), and Interior court yards and details.

3. Palau de la Música Catalana designed by Montaner. 

 We attended a classical jazz concert here as part of the Barcelona Jazz festival. They serve tapas in the lobby before the performances.  (This is Spain; main meal is at 3:30 and dinner doesn’t start till 10:30 or so.) But they do offer tours in the afternoons.  A world heritage site.  You can buy tickets at http://www.palaumusica.org/ or http://www.telentrada.com/Telentrada/en/Compra+on-line

Steve and Jan will be there 16 Apr 2012 Monday 21:00.  Concert is: DA CAMERA
LORENZO GATTO, violí, ROBERTGO GIARDANO, piano
Beethoven: Sonata primavera. Beethoven: Sonata Kreutzer  

4. Gaudi’s Casa Batllo.  Regrettably, we didn’t have time for the interior tour. 

Other sights and locations are shown on my custom Google Barcelona map.

Click on icons on the left to see where each site is on the map.  Then zoom in and switch to satellite view or street view to see more. 

Barcelona is a beautiful city for strolling on boulevards and shopping areas, produce markets or sitting in cafes or tapas bars.  It has more art nouveau buildings than any other city in the world.  You need at least 4 or 5 days to scratch the surface.

Hotel: We stayed at a small classic old but fully renovated hotel centrally located: Hotel Praktik Rambla  Ask for a “double superior” room to get a balcony on the street.  Here’s Robin on the Balcony.

I’m 80% done with getting my new computer fully operational.  I’ll follow up with info about the rest of our trip later in the week.

Barry Milliken

PS: I thought I knew all about the matters below, but there are always new surprises:

(Electrical Appendix:  The only electrical devices worth taking with you are those with internal batteries that need charging (Smart phones, laptops, shavers) with the exception of some older shavers that have a 110 vs. 220 volt switch.  Charging will work on either voltage without having a big transformer, but you will need to have the correct prong adapter.   Rental cars and some older planes in business class need a car charger like the one you put in the cigarette lighter.  The business class in the newer plane we had coming home had 110 AC with standard American 2 flat prongs, but if your charger plug has a right angled configuration like we do for our droid phones, the seat interfered with plugging it in.  Robin’s kindle charger wire comes straight out the back of the plug so it would fit and it being microUSB meant we could charge our phones with it.  The point of using the phone on the plane was for music and book reading on my Kindle app.  Some cruise ships are 110 AC with 2 flat prongs, others plus all hotels are 220 with 2 cylindrical prongs.  So you need an adapter for the later.  I saw no outlets in hotels with  a third (ground) slot like you would need for a laptop so you also need the three to two prong adapter for that.)

(Smartphone Appendix: our droid phones don’t work on the European cellular system but we could connect to free wifi in hotels and on streets near internet cafes.  Our ship offered pay for time satellite wifi, but it only worked via browsers not android apps using protocols other than http such as pop/smtp for email apps or any other app that didn’t use a browser for login and logout.  I explained that there are about half a billion smartphones extant.)