Travel Day

So much for my prediction that we would have time today to get the blog up to date.  We picked up our rental car in Barcelona and drove to our home for the next ten days on the Costa Brava.  We checked into our apartment, which is owned by some fabulous Welsh people.  They very kindly stocked the frig with cava, wine, beer, milk, butter etc. Unfortunately, we left our huge bag of loose leaf tea behind in the apartment in Barcelona, so now we are having to drink coffee, as we will not drink bagged tea, oh what torture.

We picked up a SIM card for the cell phone in Barcelona but we are having great difficulty getting it to work.  The plan is specifically geared to travellers in Spain, where you get some data for surfing, the ability to place calls in Spain as well as internationally.  We can make calls in Spain but we cannot get it to place a call to Canada.

We checked for a Vodaphone store in our town, then walked over to try and get the phone issue sorted.  I think we would have more luck flying to the moon than getting a cell phone issue resolved in Spain.  We have our doubts that it will ever get sorted out.  Luckily, the guy in the cell phone store was great, but he could not make any progress with Vodaphone support, after a few hours of nothing happening, he got a case number and we are to call Vodaphone on Monday, yeah, I am sure that will work out, not.  To make matters worse, now we have lost the ability to get an Internet connection on the phone at all.

It was getting late so we walked to a supermarket and got some supplies for the next few days.  When we exited the store, it was dark, luckily we have our bearings in this town and walked directly back to our apartment to break open the cava and make dinner.  We are so happy, there is  a gas bbq here, which is somewhat of a rarity in rentals, but the British generally outfit their places very well.

To catch up on the details of our walking tour yesterday, we are going to give the Moderniste architecture a miss and will blog about it when we get back to Barcelona at the end of the month.  The walk in the old town, was through the ancient textile area of Barcelona.  It is just a wonderful area to explore with architecture spanning several centuries.  The streets go every which way, often ending up in a neat little placa.

The palaces have really interesting courtyards with outdoor staircases leading up to the main floor.  Many are medieval in origin but have been renovated over the centuries.  More than a few of the palaces make up the Picasso Museum.  The streets are narrow, dark and damp, all very atmospheric.

Everything is so vibrant and lovely today with small shops, bars, museums, apartments etc. but the area where the workers lived was a horrible pit of a place in the past when the people lived in squalor and poverty while they slogged it out in the factories.  We were completely delighted with the medieval area, but it was a place of despair.

One of many tiny streets

Carrer Semoleres, street named for processors of semolina, which is made from durum

Placa of the old wool and yarn market

Palaces of the wealthy families of Barcelona had interior patios

Palau dels Marquesos de Llio, built in the thirteenth century

Palau Meca, medieval in origin, remodeled in late seventeenth/early eighteenth century

Carrer de les Mosques, the smallest street in Barcelona

Interesting door on a building on Placa del Born

Neo Gothic style on our favourite placa, Placa de les Olles