Grilled Artichokes in BCN


We’ve been in Barcelona (BCN) for two days now.  Since we live near the top attraction here, the Sagrada Familia, we visited that on the 26th.  Sagrada Familia is the most spectacular cathedral we’ve ever seen; designed by the architect Antonio Gaudi, famous for his modernistic style in which he used many of the themes of nature in his design. For example, the main columns in the cathedral are essentially tree trunks in structure with a single pillar that branches out as it approaches the ceiling.  He’s also incorporated the design of palm leaves, seedpods, honeycomb, coral, and more in his designs. The cathedral is in its third century of construction  (begun in the late 1800’s) and continues with completely private and anonymous funds (mostly entry fees).  There was much construction in evidence. 

We searched after that for a restaurant that we thought we had the address for, but to no avail.  We eventually settled for Bacab a traditional Catalan diner.  The butifarra (pork sausage with peppers), French fries, green bean and peas, baked apple and wine were warm and satisfying.  Arriving back in our apartment that night my pedometer read over 8 miles of walking!

Yesterday the 27th we took the tourist Hop on Hop Off bus.  Traveling around the northern perimeter of the city down to the Old City we hopped off looking for a good meal of the day.  Not to be disappointed we found a place we’d recommend, The Troubadour.  Grilled artichoke with Romescu sauce for dipping, baked monkfish with sauce Vazencia and coffee.  It was all wonderful.  Then to a market where we found a cheeses for our evening, at home, tapas dinner.  Saw a few more Gaudi buildings from the bus, walked the final leg, putting in 3.2 miles – although it felt like 10!

Our tapas dinner at home consisted of green salad with roasted red peppers, a Catalan cheese, Cabra Moia with vinaigrette, baguette with two types of beans, one with clams in sauce and another with vegetable.  We accompanied all this with Olmillos, a tempranillo, and finished with a wonderful light fresh white cheese sweetened and made roulade style with pomegranate seeds.  

Went to bed early and slept for twelve hours!

Yesterday we also went to the Picasso Museum and today to the Joan Miro Museum.  Picasso’s was informative in that it showed such a progress of his work from childhood to mature artist.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

With Love from W.I. To WI

Image
Trinidad I Yes, we are in the West Indies, Trinidad to be exact, having come from frosty Wisconsin (WI) we are lavishing in tropical warmth, barefoot. Sorry to incite any envy, but how else can I tell you what we are doing without mentioning this. The weather is one of the main reasons we leave WI in the winter. But the weather has been interesting here. It's supposed to be the beginning of the dry season but instead the rainy season is lingering into January. What that means is that its been raining a lot! A couple days this week it rained in sheets most of the day and all night. The ground is soggy and the air is humid to say the least. We tried to go for a walk but got rained on and came back to our sweet cottage. The cottage is situated on a four acre tropical garden in the center of the country, in the countryside. We have a deck off the kitchen which looks out towards the hilly grasslands and to the mountain range in the north. Trinidad is also a bird watcher's
Read more

JoY in Joyland

P hase II Pan Groove Steel Orchestra, one of the leading steel pan orchestras of Trinidad was practicing, preparing for the first phase of competition which culminated in the national Steel Pan Championship, Panorama, in the Queen's Park Savannah in the capital city, Port of Spain. Pan orchestras are one of two reasons to put Trinidad on a life’s bucket list -- the extravagant bird population being the other reason.   The Steel Pan drum was created in Trinidad, originally from the 50 gallon oil barrels, cut, welded and tuned to create individual notes. They evolved into a full range of ‘instruments’ including smaller tenor drums with higher pitched multiple notes, double tenors, guitars, cellos and more — all steel head drums. Each large steel pan group consists of up to 125 players using anywhere from two to nine drums at a time. Each drummer's instrument is on a metal rack with the larger multiple drums on wheeled carts. In the pan yards, every night through Jan and most
Read more

Spice Necklace and Jameson

Image
with a wee bit o' help from old Jameson.... Grenada, the spice island, has a charming souvenir that is sold along the beachs and market stalls.  Mostly local ladies carry, over their arms, strands of necklaces made from the spices that grow on the island.  Although each artisan may have their own style and variation on the aromatic 'gems', typically at the center or base is a pendant of nutmeg and mace. O ften going up the , strand s ymmetricaly is ginger root, tumeric root, cloves, cocoa beans, cinnamon bark and folded bay leaves.  Annatto Pod and seeds in Jameson Whiskey Spice necklace "These are not for the kitchen", warns Charlotte, the Grendian. "They are to put in your bathroom or bedroom, to make them smell good," she touts.  "But you could use them in the kitchen, right?" "Oh yes" she affirms.  I suspect she takes this approach due to the fact that most people wouldn't know what to do with a nutmeg, m
Read more