Catedral de Barcelona, Montjuïc, and Sagrada Familia

People we met today: Madrid tour guides Joseph and Joanna and bus driver Luis; June Schultz from New York City and her mother Harriet Schultz from Jersey; Roslyn Kimmel of Ottawa, with whom I had the pleasure of first conversing while in line for the ladies’ room in the Holy Family.

Day 2
7:00am Breakfast begins in same dining room as dinner, Cent Onze.

El desayuno bar included varieties of prepared eggs, breads, yogurts, fruits, a daiquiri-type mini item, fresh juices, coffee, and (for me) peppermint and (for Ian) chamomile tea… and for Ian personally, Fiber One and water, having run out of soymilk after the morning’s first bowl.

8:30am SHARP! Depart from lobby for walking tour.

Moving off from our hotel in the Old Quarter, Joseph walked and talked us through a mostly empty La Boqueria, scarcely populated La Rambla, and closed antique shops along Plaça del Pi. Monday, you see, is slow starting in Spain.

Which of the globe’s destinations can claim the epithet Tourist Capital of the World? I think it’s Dubai, which has nothing to do with my point. But I did learn that Spain houses forty-six million citizens but averages fifty-two million visitors a year. That sounds like a lot to me. (Anyway, Dubai’s title is based on revenue to the emirate per hotel guest and not on number of tourists so, really, never mind the whole thing.)

Our tour stopped in the Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter) for a visit to Catedral de Barcelona in Plaça de la Seu. Overlooking Plaça Nova and one face of an architectural school, the cathedral was completed over a five hundred-year period, boasted unique octagonal towers, and informed architect Antoni Gaudi’s design of the Holy Family cathedral across town.

We met our bus and rode past the Picasso Museum and Barceloneta to Montjuïc, seafront “Jewish hill,” one of several locations into which Jews were driven to live. It served more celebratory tenures as site for the 1992 Olympic Center—plus Olympic diving and other events—and also site for Barcelona’s second hosting of the World’s Fair, this time in 1929. We stepped off the bus to be rewarded with beautiful views of Barcelona, its port, and the Mediterranean then re-boarded for drive-bys of the National Museum of Catalunyan Art and the Joan Miró Foundation, which housed this Barcelonan’s abstract, Modernist paintings and sculptures.

The Tauck bus delivered us to the Modern Quarter and Gaudi’s unfinished El Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, under construction since 1882. Gaudí—who designed the cathedral’s three-façade layout, intricate spires, and five hundred-foot high dome—was responsible for the architecture on only one side of building: the Nativity. In 1952, Catalan sculptor Josep M. Subirachs designed the opposing (in direction and indeed in style) wall: the Passion. The remaining outer surface (the Glory) had yet to be commissioned to anyone and was undergoing big-time construction. Originally seeded with money and land from local families, the current project was funded by entrance fees from tourists, who numbered around three million last year.

Our ride continued through L’Eixample (Catalan for extension) in the modern quarter, past Gaudi’s Pedrera House, and back to the hotel.

12:00pm Arrive back at the hotel. Afternoon and evening are at your leisure.

Ian power-napped while I tooled around the lobby, Ian had an Atkins bar while I a Luna, and then I took my snoozing turn while Ian visited the exercise gym and found himself a shaving razor.

Together again, Ian and I tore down Av. Portal de l’Angel cuisine-street on a pseudo tapas crawl (as Ian called it, a “fast-food crawl”) beginning with two double-cheese Mickey-D burgers (1,40 € each) for Ian and the bun for me, then onto una ensalada verde de Pans Co. para mi hermano y un griego (emparedado de queso y tomate) para mi, and finishing with 7,95 € buffet at Fresc Co (www.fresco.com) that included salad, olives, tomatoes, fruits, pastas, soup, pizzas, soft-serve ice cream, breads, coffee, soft drinks, and teas (we stuck to salad and pizza).

As it was our final night at Le Meridien, Ian settled hotel incidentals and we luggaged up our stuff. Harboring an aching heart, I parted with the huggable hotel bathrobe and set my eyes to the future, pushing aside feelings of friendliness that had so easily developed between us. Carry on, I told myself. Carry on.

Things we’d hoped to do in Barcelona but did not: find leather shoes for Ian, visit the Picasso museum, go antiquing, watch water dance in choreography with music and light at the Font Màgica on Montjuïc’s base, dine at the vegetarian cuisine restaurant L’Hortet, eat cuttlefish, and build a snowman.