The internet is very worked up about how Barcelona is 1) terribly overrun with tourism and 2) a hotbed of pickpockets and petty thievery. In the days leading up to our trip I even considered cancelling our hotel, which was on the very edge of the old city across the street from a park, and moving to somewhere farther from the center instead. Ben talked me down.
Late November is a good time to be a tourist, no doubt, and I can see that parts of the city would probably be pretty crowded during the high season, but we experienced very little annoyance and certainly zero danger the entire time we were there. El Born, the less touristy half of the old city, is an absolute delight - entirely composed of twisty old streets, lined with shops and restaurants and apartment balconies above.
The first morning, we set out just to wander around and get the lay of the land. This is before the shops opened, but I was already pretty pleased with the neighborhood.
Barcelona was, like most European cities, originally Roman. I don't know why this seemed surprising. Some of the Roman city walls still remain.
We went into an open church - very interesting to see this so closely on the heels of the intricately frescoed churches in Italy. Spanish churches are much more traditional European, heavy stone and gold and all that.
Poor children, burning in hell.
We didn't go inside the big main cathedral. There was always a (small) line, and you also had to pay, and even Rick Steves was not very effusive about this one. I'm sure it's quite nice.
Lots of Christmas lights all over the city!
We happened upon the Museum of Contemporary Art so popped in there. Later we learned this was in the neighborhood known as El Raval, which is supposedly a hotbed of crime and danger, but which seemed exactly the same as the rest of the perfectly safe city.
The contemporary art museum was really great. Lots of political art which is depressing in retrospect. Forty years, and here we still are.
This was about dead people or something.
Here's a view of the neighborhood skateboarders and pedestrians from the museum. You can see how dangerous they look.
My boss lived in Barcelona for several years, and sent me a list of his favorite restaurants. We decided to walk over to the nearest one (which turned out to be kind of a hike) and try it out.
Thumbs up to Cerveceria Catalana! We got a tapas sampler and this is what they brought. You can see a pile of bread on the right side in the back - the standard bread in Barcelona comes smeared with garlic and tomato and it is real good.
We decided to go check out the nearby Museum of Modernisme, but it was closed for siesta and we had some time to kill so I made Ben go into a bookstore. I love foreign bookstores even when the books aren't in English.
The modernisme museum was a bit of a letdown. I was hoping for an overview of the genre but it was mostly furniture.
Nice furniture, at least.
The Arc de Triomf was quite near our hotel.
We got to walk through this park area every time we headed back home from neighborhoods to the north.
We headed out for dinner at 9:00pm, feeling self-congratulatory that we actually waited until a semi-normal Spanish dinner time. It was Monday night, so almost all the restaurants were closed, but we managed to find a cozy little place that turned out to be fantastic.
The waiter was very friendly. He was from Chile and has lived in Barcelona for seven years. He told us some local places to check out but we forgot them immediately.
This is some kind of ceviche-d fish in spicy orange juice and it was just as fantastic as you're thinking it was.
First day: success!
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