The other must-see in Barri Gotic is the Palau Reial Major, the palace of the former Counts of Barcelona. Catalunya used to be part of France, but in the twelfth century it was given its independence, and ruled by the Counts of Barcelona. The French rule is also the reason Catalunya has its unique language, Catalan, which has heavy French and Spanish influences.



The Count of Barcelona married the Queen of neighboring Aragon, and the palace became the home of the joint monarchy. This golden age for Barcelona came to a halt in the fifteenth century, with the famous marriage of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, which united Aragon with Castile. Although it was supposed to be a marriage of equals, power quickly moved to Castile and away from Barcelona, so the palace was soon abandoned.



It's a sprawling place, but not very photogenic as much of it looks like an archeological dig rather than a royal palace. Actually the interior isn't very palatial either; it's huge, but much more like a massive fort than a showpiece residence. The most interesting part of the palace is actually underneath it, where archeologists have dug up a huge swathe of the ancient Roman city. Lots of old streets, building foundations etc are all sitting under there, and it's very easy to get an idea of what the Roman Barcelona would have looked like.

The cathedral's interior is quite stunning in its soaring sense of space, and attention to architectural detail. The main nave is very high impact, but the smaller chapels surrounding the nave are all worthwhile exploring as well. There's also a beautiful cloister attached to the back and generally undervisited, which makes it a nice place to chill and enjoy a bit of greenery in the otherwise brooding Barri Gotic.

On Friday, we tackled the old town, or Barri Gotic, which is impressively moody and medieval. The area's got a couple of must-see sights, like the cathedral, but the overall effect of the place, ancient hulking building, dark, timeworn alleys etc. makes it a great place to wander for a few hours. And definitely a different feel from the beach.



The Cathedral, or Seu, dominates the entire area. It was built mostly in the fourteenth century, and is a classic example of Gothic architecture. However, the facade, which is its most photographed feature, wasn't built until the nineteenth century. For five centuries this gothic masterpiece sat with a blank wall for a face. But during the nineteenth century a liberal, strongly secular government took power in Barcelona's province, Catalunya, and they proposed inscribing the Catalan Constitution on the blank face of the church. That threat finally got the church to move, and they covered the blankness with a more traditional facade.

Had a great dinner at our first Barcelona restaurant, although since Madrid has pretty much been taken over by Barcelona culinarily speaking, there wasn't much of a difference in the two cities. The restaurant is sleek minimalist, and very serious. There are only a dozen or so tables, very widely spaced, and the numerous staff glide about the room noiselessly but with great professionalism. The overall effect is more of a temple than a restaurant, which I really hadn't expected, because it was a pretty new restaurant in a fairly funky part of town. The chef is a local celebrity, and he's famous for making very challenging food combinations, and for creating a different menu from scratch every night. Typically that approach puts a lot of strain on the kitchen and waitstaff, but it felt like everyone was old pros at serving the evening's menu. Unfortunately I don't remember what we had so I'll have to leave this with just these general comments. Oh, and a news flash, that two months ago (November '07) Abac received its second Michelin star. (Food-18, Decor-17, Service-17)

Returning to las Ramblas, we walked the remaining few blocks of the boulevard, which gets nicer the farther you walk. It passes by the famous fresh market, La Boqueria. Founded about two hundred years ago, it's one of the largest and busiest markets and Spain, and as usual we enjoyed touring the vegetable stands.

We took a detour off the Ramblas to explore the unfortunately named neighborhood of Pi. It's an odd place, sandwiched between the Ramblas and the old city. Surprisingly, it feels pretty desolate considering it's just steps away from the Ramblas hordes. The narrow passageways link three different plazas, each with its own medieval church and a small cafe. It's quite atmospheric, although it doesn't seem connected to the rest of the city.

Las Ramblas cuts through the heart of an elegant part of town. While the once attractive main boulevard has been ruined by tourism, there are lots of interesting bits and pieces off the street. Placa Reial, pictured here, is a nineteenth century square filled with palm trees and interesting cafes. We hung around here for a bit then continued our Ramblas rambling.

After the museum, we walked up las Ramblas, the most famous street in Spain. Notwithstanding its fame as a world class walking street, I had low expectations for it. I had expected something along the lines of the Rastro flea market in Madrid, so I was pleasantly surprised that it was a bit more entertaining. But just a bit. The street itself is very elegant, wide and lined with some interesting, though variable, architecture. But the whole street is mobbed with tourists, and the shops sell endless variations of tourist crap, while the cafes serve mediocre tourist food.

Barcelona's sprawling medieval shipyard sits behind Christopher Columbus. Called les Drassanes, the shipyard is a sprawling complex of high ceilings supported by ancient brick arches. As Spain's attention moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, Barcelona's seafaring industry dwindled. The factory was eventually abandoned, and now houses the Maritime Museum. The museum has dozens of ships from Barcelona's past, and lots of other exhibits about the city's maritime past. The collection is only of medium interest, but the building itself is remarkable, and well worth a visit.

We then walked along the beach for about an hour into the city. There's a more direct route to the city center from the hotel, but, as per my earlier post, it's depressing and the beach walk was much more tempting. While the beach around the hotel is very laid back, as we got closer to the city, the ambiance became decidedly more elegant. The overly ornate building pictured here was the old Customs House.

The beach walk came to the end at the monument to Christopher Columbus, pictured here at the end of a palm tree lined boulevard. Columbus landed in Barcelona on his return from the New World in 1493.

The beach is definitely the best thing about Barcelona. It's a great city, fun, vibrant etc. with the usual European cultural/sightseeing distractions, but it's not really different from other European destinations. The beach changes everything, though, as I can't think of anywhere else with medieval palaces and cathedrals, and beach volleyball.



We walked outside our hotel and stopped at the first beachside restaurant we came across. There are about fifty all around our neck of the woods, but they're more or less all the same, mediocre food, great weather and great peoplewatching.

Some photos of the great views from our (rather dirty) hotel windows. We had a view over the whole city, and a partial view of the ocean, since our room was so large. But the city's not particularly attractive from this distance, so a full ocean view would definitely have been preferable. Actually that reminds me of another slight negative. The hotel is the anchor for the redevelopment of the old port, that took place in connection with revamping the city for the Olympics. That makes it the only hotel on the beach, but it also means it's a bit far from the rest of the city. It's probably only a fifteen minute walk to most places, but it's a very depressing walk, involving running across eight lane highways and tramping over abandoned lots. The wasteland between the hotel and the city has probably been developed by now, but if not, you may want to opt for something more central, or rely on taxis.

124. Barcelona

One good aspect of Barcelona's airport is that it's basically in downtown. I think the distance we walked inside the airport was less than the distance from airport to hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Arts, a Ritz Carlton hotel. It was built as Barcelona's preeminent hotel, a mix of luxe and trendy that was really Barcelona's first top class hotel. It's the tall building with the crisscrossing girders all over it. Service is fantastic, as friendly as they are efficient, and the setting is perfect, right on the beach, which is what really differentitates Barcelona from all other European cities. The pool was a constant party and a great place to unwind, and the overall hotel gave us a nice vibe. The room was huge, a big living room, then a smaller living room and the bedroom, all of which was decorated like a college dorm room. Beige carpeting, cheap sub Ikea furnishings and polyester bed spreads, the whole thing a symphony of beige. Quite possibly the worst room I've ever stayed in. I imagine they've redone the rooms by now, but check before you go because you'll be staying on a very high floor and the decor can make you want to jump out the window. Hotel Arts: overall-8 (Room: 5, Service, 9, Facilities, 9). The room gets a 5 because it's huge and has great views, but you'll throw up if you look inside rather than outside. And the overall rating is a bit higher than it should be mathematically because in many ways it's a perfect hotel, and I gave them the benefit of the doubt on the redecorating.

The very short Madrid to Barcelona flight was possibly the most confusing flight I've ever taken. First off, the flight leaves from Madrid's international terminal notwithstanding it's a domestic flight, so the driver understandably dropped us off at the domestic terminal and we had to lug our luggage around to the fairly far international terminal. Next we had to go through immigration, even though we weren't leaving the country. Even they seemed confused about this, as they exit stamped my passport and took my exit card away, but did nothing to Somchai's passport. We then boarded the Iberian flight to Barcelona. The only other time I flew Iberian was during my school trip, and I remember the elderly flight attendant hitting a customer because he knocked over her drinks cart when he opened the bathroom door, so I was a bit apprehensive. Fortunately no attendant on customer violence this trip, although business class was definitely not worth paying a peso more for, as it's just like economy class but separated with a curtain.

In Barcelona we went through immigration again, but the officer asked only one question, whether we had checked luggage, again a new immigration question for me. Since we had, he wouldn't let us through but told us to go upstairs. So we wandered around for about fifteen minutes until we found what looked to be a completely abandoned immigration post. Actually there was an officer sleeping inside. He didn't seem to care that I had already exited, and this time he took Somchai's card and stamped his passport with an exit stamp. So we now had both officially left Spain, although we still had four more days left in the country. This post led to a huge duty free shopping area, with no sign of a baggage carousel, but after another twenty minutes wandering around we started to go up and downstairs and came across a bunch of baggage carousels. Unfortunately none of them had our flight's luggage on them, and we were about to give up and just go to the hotel when Somchai spotted his bag on the carousel marked as a flight from Seville. So we found our luggage on this Seville flight, and fled the chaos to get to our hotel.

A picture-free post to mark our transition from Madrid to Barcelona. Our last dinner was at a restaurant near the hotel, Cluny. Its proximity was a big bonus, since it was pouring all evening. Nice music, fun decor, a sort of modernized belle epoque look if that makes any sense. And the owner was very friendly, and treated us like house guests. Which in effect we were, since we were the only guests. I assumed its emptiness was due to the rain, but as I looked for it now on the internet it seems to have closed, so maybe it was normally empty. The menu was strange but quite good. I had a great first course of assorted flowers stuffed with foie gras, and a somewhat bland artichoke stuffed with spider crab as a main. Can't remember what Somchai ate, but we also had a great bottle of wine, and overall was a very mellow, enjoyable end to our Madrid trip. (Food-17, Decor-16, Service-19).

The town was bustling, and is apparently very popular with Madrilenos for its local specialty of anis. This licorice flavored alcoholic drink isn't particularly tasty, but, unlike in Aranjuez, at least the stuff is actually made here. There are about thirty bars serving anis so we stopped for an obligatory drink, and afterwards walked around the town for an hour. It's got an ancient romanesque church perched above the plaza mayor, and a decrepit castle that's not particularly interesting but makes a good vantage point for seeing this tightly packed town.

123. Chinchon

Our final stop for the day was the pretty market town of Chinchon. Its plaza mayor is really pretty, a bullring surrounded by centuries-old buildings lined with covered arcades. The buildings are all tilting precariously and the arcades are held up by columns that look like they're about to snap, but it's a pretty arrangement, ruined by the practicality that the bullring is a parking lot when the bulls aren't being slaughtered.

The gardens are enormous, much bigger than La Granja, but not as nicely designed. The palace is on the river, but the gardens couldn't be contained so there are bridges over the river allowing the garden to sprawl over the other bank. We walked for about an hour through the garden, but it soon started looking more like a nature reserve as the gardeners ran out of things to do with all this space.



Aranjuez is known throughout the country for two things, asparagus and strawberries, and Madrilenos flock here on weekends just for these. We stopped at a grand cafe outside the palace for lunch, and of course ordered asparagus and strawberries (separate courses), just like everybody else. Surprisingly the asparagus came from a can and the strawberries were frozen, so I didn't really see the point.