Spain Road Trip, Day 2

After a pleasant breakfast in our impromptu La Molina chalet, we hit the road and promptly passed our intended hotel in Collada de Toses in about 5 minutes. The scenery in the mountains was stunning, and the driving was typical windy, side-of-the-mountain stuff, but today, the driving was all downhill to from the mountains to the sea.

Our first stop was the town of Besalu and its famed medieval Bridge.

The fortified bridge in Besalu

We finally hit the coast in Roses, which is on a stunning stretch of coastline north of Barcelona called Costa Brava. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel, then headed to the fishing village and seaside resort of Cadaques.

Cadaques

We walked around the coast and among the fancy seaside houses of Cadaques, eventually ending up at Port Ligat. Seeing as we were on the sea, we decided this might be a good place to have our paella fix for spain. Unfortunately, paella is not really a Catalan dish, and the paella left me much worse for wear. Heavy with paella, we headed back to the very affordable Hostel Rom for the night.

Spain Road Trip, Day 1

Done with Barcelona, we packed up and hit the road in just about the only automatic rental car in Spain. After driving the “automatico” Citroen C3, I can understand why Europeans shun automatic cars – they suck. Anyway, we sped our way to the mountains to nearby Monserrat and its scenic monastery tucked amongst the rock columns.

Me in the remains of a hermitage on Monserrat

The monastery at Monserrat

We then headed inland to Cardona to visit the Cardona castle, which is now a hotel.

Lord Emory overlooks his serfs below the castle

Elena in a barrel in Castle Cardona

Cardona Castle

We then headed through the mountains – literally. We passed through a 3-mile tunnel that cost 10 euro ($16) in tolls. But when we popped out the other side, we were suddenly in a verdant valley surrounded by the Pyrenees.

Elena in the valley

Driving through the mountains

The sun peeks into the valley

We stopped in Puigcerda for dinner, where again, we had to wait around for restaurants to open. After a horrific meal at a bar/café, we drove through La Molina in our quest to find our hotel in Collada de Toses. After realizing that our map and Google directions were useless, we resorted to driving through the mountains at night relying on Catalan road signs. We ended up erroneously in the alpine village of Toses, 150 people strong. Turning our car around in the narrow medieval streets was 20 minute operation. Eventually, we doubled back to La Molina, got directions that brought us on the path to Toses again, before we went back to La Molina again and settled down at a ski chalet around midnight.

The next morning, an English-speaking host at the chalet marveled at the fact that we ended up in Toses ("No one goes there!"), especially in the middle of the night. He explained that a lot of maps were wrong because Catalonia had recently been granted semi-autonomous status, and the Catalan government had been flexing its newfound powers by renaming all the highways. The irony of the situation is that our original hotel was literally a mile down the road from where we had turned off to go to Toses.

Barca vs. Valencia

Me at FC Barcelona's Camp Nou

We weren’t planning on staying 4 days in Barcelona, but we got tickets for the FC Barcelona vs. Valencia soccer game at Camp Nou stadium, and that was too good to pass up for a couple of soccer nuts. We used most of the day as a rest day, with Elena hitting more shopping, and me picking up the game tickets and confirming our car rental for the rest of the trip.

We had purchased our tickets online, which complicated our planning back home because La Liga teams don't settle on the times and dates of their games until couple weeks before the game. The original game time was 9 pm(!) on a Sunday night. Andreu explained to me that 9 pm is prime time in Spain, and TV money dictates the game times, even pushing games back to 10 pm sometimes. Apparently people don't need to get up early for work in Barcelona.

Luckily, our game was switched to 7 pm, and when game time finally arrived, we were rewarded by Barca’s high-priced stars, young and old. Within 15 minutes, the maligned Barca had shredded their hapless rivals for 3 goals. By the time the sun set over Camp Nou in the waning minutes of the game, Barca was up 6-0, with a dominant performance from Lionel Messi and 2 goals each from ringer Thierry Henry and teen phenom Bojan Krkic. Ronaldinho was nowhere to be found and wasn't missed.

The sun sets over Camp Nou as Barca sparkles, 6-0

We had a traditionally Spanish late dinner at Gente de Pasta, which continued our long line of moderately expensive yet mediocre meals in Spain. Really, the lesson we learned is that with the horrific exchange rate and standard of living in Spain, if you don’t splurge on dinner, you might as well go cheap, because anything in the middle is equally bad. We spent a lot of the rest of the trip eating better and cheaper foods at bakeries.

Tarragona day trip

Having exhausted ourselves of Barcelona and its tourists, we took a day trip down the coast to Tarragona, an old Roman stronghold. On the train, we passed by posh beach resorts and serene Mediterranean villas that were a nice break from the hustle and bustle of BCN.

Tarragona turned out to be a terrific day trip, because, in addition to being pretty devoid of tourists, it’s a great example of how Europeans just live amongst their history without really thinking too much about it. Roman amphitheaters just sit next to the beach, and are recycled from gladiator pits to churches to political arenas. People live in houses that share walls with Medieval city walls.

The Roman Amphitheater in Tarragona

Roman circus ruins in Tarragona

A tunnel underneath the Roman Circus in Tarragona

But my main goal was to see the Roman aqueduct in Tarragona. The Pont de Diable was not in the town center, and sits all by its lonesome out in the middle of a nondescipt valley. After about four bus trips in which we made complete fools out ourselves to all the bus drivers, information center employees, and locals in Tarragona, we finally found the Pont de Diable. Which was well worth it, since one can actually walk across it…

Tempting the devil on the Pont de Diable aqueduct

Satisfied from our conquest of the aqueduct, we headed back to Barcelona, where we had atrocious (but cheap) tapas. We were too tired to care, and we slept well eagerly awaiting one last treasure in Barcelona...

Barcelona, Day 2

Refreshed and ready to take Barcelona by storm, we hit L’Eixample to throw ourselves at the mercy of all things Gaudi. But first...

...a cow for Clara

Casa Batllo's Freaky Windows

Casa Mila

We didn’t actually go inside these Gaudi palaces, with their Disneyland-esque lines and admission fees. Well, except when we found back entrances, er, exits.

We then headed to the main Gaudi temple, Sagrada Familia, with its schizophrenic faces that surround a whole lot of unfinished nothing. It’s supposed be done ina decade or so, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Me at Sagrada Familia

Gaudi's Sagrada Familia puts on a sad face

We then hiked up to Parc Guell for our final Gaudi stop on our tour.

A mad Baroque cellist in Parc Guell.

Hanging out in the rocky tunnels of Parc Guell

Poop and scoop in Parc Guell

Not a hobbit hut, just the gift shop in Parc Guell

After trekking through all of sunny Barcelona to get in touch with our inner Gaudi and learning the joys of Fanta, we hit the shops in L’Eixample, and got in touch with our inner Asian feelings.

Your politically incorrect caption here.

Inspired, we had dinner at Restaurant Me, a fusion of Catalan, Vietnamese, and New Orleans cooking. Ok, there wasn’t a whole lot of Catalan that I could tell. But my plum sauce-coated ribs were amazing, as was Elena’s blackened perch.

Not used to the Spanish eating schedule, we got used to waiting outside of restaurants until they opened at 8:30 pm, and were frequently the first ones through the door.

Barcelona, Day 1

We landed in Barcelona at 7:30 am, weary from not sleeping for two days. The slick AeroBus dropped us off right in Placa Catalunya. We realized on the drive over that the streets were unusually empty since May 1 is a holiday (May Day). And it was only 8 in the morning. Since we couldn’t check into our tiny-yet-affordable room at Apt. RamCat until noon, we hung out at a café in the plaza and checked out all the closed (and horrifically expensive) stores.

After checking in, we cruised down the main tourist drag of La Rambla until we hit the coast, then we made our way north until we hit the beach. Since it was May Day, there was a union celebration that involved, among other things, an effort to break the world record for the World’s Largest Paella.

A horde of chefs stir the World's Largest Paella

We declined to taste the jumbo paella, figuring that the world’s paella would not be the world’s best paella. We made our way to the beach, where the sunny holiday had attracted hordes of sunbathers.

We then met up with former Alivisatoid and extreme Catalan, Andreu. We toured the Gothic Quarter with Andreu and caught up on all things Berkeley and nano.

Alivisatos reunion in the Gothic Quarter

After struggling to stay awake the entire day, we succumbed and took a nap. We managed to get up for dinner at La Quinze Nits, where people line up around the plaza for the opportunity to eat a decent but not spectacular meal and down pitchers of sangria without maxing out their credit cards.

After that, it was sleep, sweet sleep, before our transformation into hard-core tourists the next day.