BLOG # 7:  FOUR DAYS IN BARCELONA

We repeated our stay, from a few years ago, at the Hotel Continental, directly overlooking La Rambla, Barcelona.   Not only did we have a balcony overlooking the street, we had a 24-hour free beer tap in the lobby.  Ice cream is also free.

La Rambla is a great people watching area, which for us could be done either from our balcony or by sitting in one of the chairs conveniently provided right on the street.

Two pictures of Betty our first day in Barcelona (one showing her with her first glass of the evening and the other showing her with her last) indicate from the second picture grin that she cheered from her disembarkation downer.

Because we had been in Barcelona a couple of times before, and with Betty’s mobility issues, we stuck fairly close to the Gothic Quarter.  On our second night we attended a guitar concert at the Basilica del Pi.  Betty asked Google for directions and Mr. Google commented that it was a 6-minute walk or a 22-minute car drive.  It took Betty considerably more than 6 minutes, but she did beat the cars’ time.

After 21 days of rich food on the ship we basically ate tapas while here.  Although prices of tapas have increased since our last visit, they no longer bother to charge for wine (usually a Rioja Crianza).  Before the concert we had an excellent tapas meal outside the Basilica.  Two large plates of tapas, excellent Crèma Catalan for dessert, two bottles of sparkling water and four large glasses of wine came to $ 40. Canadian.  That included a service charge and a supplemental fee for eating outside.  In Antigonish that would have gotten us no food and a bottle of very rough wine. 

On the other hand, if one wants to eat at Canadian prices, within a 3-wood distance of our hotel are a McDonalds, a Burger King, a Subway, and a Five Guys.  Perhaps American tourists need places where they feel comfortable.

On Thursday we bought tickets for two routes on the hop-on-hop-off bus.  On the first route we saw lots of nice sites, including some gaudy, Gaudi sites, but seemed to spent most of our time sitting at stop lights.  We skipped the second route.

Barcelona has a very good underground, but surface travel is quite slow, even with the 10,000 plus registered taxis, and the city only allowing low-emission cars.  I think to live here one would need a place close to a subway entrance.

On Saturday we will try and catch a Vueling (unheard of discount airline) flight to Amsterdam (fingers crossed), and two days later we will fly to Budapest.  After that Viking River Cruises will look after us for the last two weeks our trip.