The Ramblas Ramble

We took this walk from the Rick Steves book today and then beyond that we walked along the Rambla del Mar (by the sea) out to the big mall area.  The area out there was all built for the Olympics in 1992. We really weren’t very interested in the mall but we went there to find a public restroom.

Our coffee was Uganda style (June will know what I mean) since there is no coffee pot to brew it.   We thought we would buy one today but we didn’t see one.  I think the lack of cooking utensils is the draw back to having a male landlord but he sure did run up all those stairs with our suitcases very fast!  However, despite not having a coffee pot the other cooking utensils are adequate for what we need.  We left the flat and walked to the tourist info place on the Placa de Catalunya gathering some info for our future ideas.  Shortly after we began our walk we became hungry and stopped for lunch at the first place we saw.  We had our first (but not our last) Sangria with lunch, salad, spaghetti, and pizza.  It was either really delicious or we were starving!  The spaghetti was not special but the pizza reminded me of those we ate in Italy, scrumptious!  One of the most enjoyable stops was La Boqueria Market.  The vast array of luscious fruits and vegetables was amazing.  We did buy a few tomatoes but other than that we didn’t anything else.  There is every sort of fruit or veggie you might want along with meat, fish, and of course the ever present “mystery” meat we see in countries we travel to.  I can say the heads, tongues, and various innards of animals could almost turn me into a vegetarian!  We are just not used to seeing most things like that. 

We walked all the way to the bottom with stops along the way to see the highlights.  Sadly the bird Rambla was closed.  Maybe I forgot to mention we missed most of the downpour of rain while we ate lunch!  We arrived at the Christopher Columbus statue, avoided the areas of prostitution, and then on to the Rambla del Mar, then back up the Rambla also stopping at various places.  We saw our first glimpse of Gaudi and his first public work in the Placa Reial showing two colorful helmeted lampposts.  Continuing our walk back up the Rambla we saw the hotel our friends will be staying in and past that we took a turn back toward our flat.  We looked at a couple places for just a snack on the way back and chose a place very near the Cathedral de Barcelona and had an interesting little snack. It was Bilbao Berria where everything you eat has a large toothpick or small skewer in it.  It is self serve and you choose how much or how little you eat and they count up the toothpicks for your check.  Tasty and interesting!  So many choices, even little desserts to John’s delight! 

We love having the Cathedral de Barcelona right next to us.  Dany (our landlord) said the bells were a small problem every quarter hour but personally I love it!