Jesse and Jen wanted to visit Barcelona on their European trip and I had not been to Barcelona since I was five, so we decided to do a weekend adventure to Barcelona.

We walked over to the Gare Matabiau to catch the train. On the way we stopped and had a Petit Dejuener at a cafe on the walk. It was great as it was a chocolatine, fresh squeezed orange juice and hot chocolate. We, also, bought sandwiches for the train ride as we left at 10:42 and arrived 2:29 so the train was over lunch time.

We took an InterCities train to Narbonne and then caught the TGV from Narbonne to Barcelona. The Intercities train was fairly empty and quiet. The TGV was crowded and noisy. Our seats were interspersed with a high school group from Germany. They were pretty lively and loud. As Jen said, they were just being teenagers.

I had never taken the train west from Toulouse. All my trips had either been north or east so it was interesting to see the landscape in the southwestern part of France and then into Spain. We passed along the Mediterranean for parts and it is definitely a beautiful shade of blue. There were flamingoes in some of the lagoons along the coast. The part through Spain was mainly through the foothills of the mountains. We we through a couple of tunnels. Train travel in Europe is definitely a good deal and a good way to travel.

I did not realize it but Jen had never been on a train before and so for her it was a real adventure. She seemed to like it.

We wandered up to our hotel from Barcelona-Sants train station. The streets were pretty quiet which surprised me until I realized it was siesta time.

After getting a little refreshed we headed down to the old city of Barcelona as we had tickets for the Picasso Museum at 6:00 pm. It does show Spanish life to a certain point that they are still offering entrance to the Museum at 6:00 pm on a Saturday night. The museum has a large collection of Picasso paintings and other works. He donated many of other pieces to the museum during his lifetime. Many of Les Meninas studies were in the museum. It is in an old building that has been modernized.

We got down to the area where the museum was early and found a nice tapas bar, Bar del Pla, and had a bottle of wine while we waited for admission. The bartender who was very engaging and fun suggested we have dinner there but we explained that we had to go to the museum. We decided that we would come back after the museum as it seemed a fun place and were able to get a reservation from 7:30 pm.

The first bottle of wine before the museum was a Priorat as I asked if they had any when he asked what kind of wine we liked. It was very good.

After the museum, we headed back to the Bar del Pla and had a Tapas dinner.

We had Meat Balls in Squid Sauce, Clams with Beans, Fricando (a Catalan beef stew, Celaric root with sweet potatoes and traditional bread with tomatoes on it. I was hungry and the food was so good I forgot to take pictures of all of it.

The second bottle of wine was from the Barcelona area. It was “super natural” as the waiter described it. He thought it should open up and decanted it. He said it should probably have been left open for 3 hours before drinking. It was lighter than the Priorat and had very earthy notes. It is 100% Jacqué grapes. It is aged on it lees for 7 months in stainless steel tanks. The description I found says, stepped on feet, one-night maceration, and fermented with natural yeast. It was good as well. Definitely different than the Priorat. I like to taste different wines so it was fun to experiment.

After dinner we did a paseo and wandered to the La Rambla, the famous pedestrian street in Barcelona. Unfortunately, it is very tourist oriented now and most has tourist shops and people selling counterfeit goods on the street. It is still very crowded and lots of Barcelonan’s are out walking. It has all the American culture icons around it – Footlocker, MacDonalds, KFC and others. It did have a touch of home as there is a Five Guys on the Plaça de Catalonia.

On the walk home, we found a street party. There was a DJ playing music, a beer stand and lots of people. We had a good time listening to the music, watching the people and drinking beer. It was a “real Barcelona” experience as we were probably the only non-Spanish group there.

All in all, one could not ask for a better first day in Barcelona.