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We then headed off to Ronda de San Anton to meet up with Isabel’s cousin (also called Isabel) and her daughter Marina (seven). We went for horchata (it’s a cool mily drink made from nuts) for Marina and beers for the rest of us. Time flew and it was around 3am by the time we got back home.
The next morning - Juan had a parking ticket! In Zaragoza they don’t pay to park on Saturdays, but here in the centre of Barcelona it’s a big money earner for the Ayuntament. More swearing followed… the annoying thing was that Juan had already been down to his car that morning to move the seats back and the ticket must have been slapped on in between him coming back up to the flat and all of us heading off… to the beach
We drove northeast to Caldes D’Estrac in the Maresme - a great beach that Isabel and I have been to before by train (the train station is right beside the beach). Anyway, the place was totally parked up by the time we got there, but Juan managed to negotiate a space with a local who was loading up his car. The beach is fairly deserted and ther’s a great family atmosphere. We spent a few hours there before heading back to Barcelona. In the evening we headed down through San Pere to the lovely relaxed cafe atmosphere of C/Allada Vermell. It’s always a wonderful place to sit and relax under the trees and sip a cold beer.
Sunday was a reminder of why Barcelona is such a great place to live. Another sunny day - we headed up to the Parque del Labirinto - almost in Colserolla. It’s a wonderful park with beautiful flowers and of course the maze; where we managed to get lost - at least Dani found the way out first. Entrance is free on Sundays! Then we caught the metro back down to Parallel so Dani could get a ride on the funicular up to Montjuic and then down on the cable car to the beach at Barceloneta. We spent some time at Montjuic watching people diving in the huge swimming and diving pools up there - an incredible view with the backdrop of the whole city below. There was the usual 30-minute plus queue for the cable car, but it does give spectacular views of the harbour. When we landed at Barceloneta, we walked back to the Palau del Mar for a late lunch at La Gavina (Paella, Fideau, great tempura prawns and croquetas…) then we walked back home and watched the British Grand Prix (recorded) before Juan and co headed off home.
All in all a fantastic weekend (apart from Ikea).
]]>We turned up around 10:30pm expecting the bonfire to be in full blaze, but there was no sign of a cinder. We headed into the local corner restaurant Casa Freixo, sat down with a bottle of cava and some tapas and quizzed the owner. He told us that he’d been running the local verbana for the last 20 years, but he had had enough… The Ayuntamiento were looking to charge him 1200 Euros to run the bonfire and I guess that the extra business that it would have brought in wasn’t worth the hassle for him. It was disappointing but understandable - he complained that none of the neighbours ever showed any interest in getting involved in the organisation in recent years. Some kids came in with crates of fireworks wondering where the party was, and had to leave looking disappointed. No big deal in the end as they set them all off in the street outside.
Earlier on Saturday we “discovered” another great little local place for tapas. The Bar Mut in c/ Pau Claris just above Diagonal. The decor is distinctly Paris 1930s, very friendly staff and great quality food with the menu hand-written on a couple of blackboards. They also have a wooden?!? fridge. We just had a plato of ibericos and a sortido de quesos with a couple of cañas, but we’ll be back to try something more substantial.
]]>It was fantastic to see all my Scottish cousins and their families and Uncle George and Aunty Chrissie looking in such wonderful health.
Back in Barcelona we seem to have spent the last month continuously moving furniture around so that the builders could finish their work. After much hard work we are now in a situation where things are relatively tidy, and the cardboard boxes are getting fewer and fewer. We have a lot of furniture now although we are still waiting for some custom-made wardrobes for our bedroom.
Isabel’s brother Jesús and family (Mamen, Jesusito and Leonor) have given us the honour of being our first guests this weekend. They came down for Jesusito to sing in a choir at the Auditori in Barcelona on Sunday. When I say choir, it was really a huge chorus of children from all over Spain - I did a rough head count and there were 700 kids on stage singing a version of the Emperor’s New Clothes.
We had a fantastic lunch with them by the beach on Sunday prior to the concert. We all shared a bowl of arroz con bogavante (lobster with rice) in the Arenal restaurant. We would go there again because this was absolutely wonderful.
The title of this post is a little inaccurate because Emilio, our painter from Chile, will be back still finishing off during this week, but there really isn’t much to do. We have the feeling that he’s doing it really slowly because he enjoys working here so much - I guess that the air conditioning helps.Â
This weekend has been the Festa Major (Fiesta Mayor) of the Eixample Dreta where we live. Our street, C/Girona, was closed to traffic along much of its length to allow market stalls and entertainment stands to be set up. The intention was to take the fiesta back to the period when the Eixample was first being built, and things to see included lots of people in period (c.1910) dress, local children’s bands, magicians, period cars, motorbikes, a bus and a Fire engine (that’s the red one that says “Bombers de Barcelona” on its side). One of the local delis Can Ravell provided a whole roast pig and cow with which they managed to feed hundreds of people. This was impressively well organized and the cow had been roasted for 12 hours from midnight on Friday to be ready for Saturday lunchtime.
You can see photos from the Festa Major here.
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