The restaurant has their name in Spanish and also in Catalan. The kitchen is across the street and our tables are on a long pedestrian island that runs the length of La Rambla
We will be eating Tapas, a variety of small dishes
Like our favorite white anchovies in oil and vinegar
Iberico ham
Tomato bread
Spanish omelette
Coconut and caramel cake for dessert
A delicious and filling lunch and now we could walk slowly back to our next treat.
On the way I stopped to get some ATM cash. You can choose the language you understand.
Casa Batllo
As we had bought tickets online we didn't have to join the queue that was permanently waiting outside from open to close. We walked right in and picked up headphone guides. We wanted to begin on the roof .
There is a small elevator which can hold two people comfortably but two other folks crammed in just before we hit the UP button. Our bodies became ONE.
Chimneys as art
For us , there is beauty in everything Gaudi could imagine
There's a skylight that takes up much of the roof space. This photo was taken after we used the stairs to go down into the building.
Unlike Casa Mila there are not a lot of rooms to explore, nor were they fully furnished so it takes a lot less time and is less compelling to visit
The building was a private home and the owner Josep Batllo hired Gaudi to renovate it in 1904 and the work was completed in 1906. In 2005 it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Such imaginative and striking windows!
We made a visit to the small and crowded gift shop before leaving, returning to the street level via the stairs, to return our headsets which incidentally used music from Richard Wagner's opera Lohengrin between informative readings. Very apt with it's wistful dream-like music.
By the time we left, making our way past those still waiting to get in, it was 7 pm and we decided to return to our hotel to pack and then relax. The light was fading.
We had to be up at 5 a.m next morning-Monday October 5th to go to the airport to fly home and there was no better place to spend our last few waking hours in Spain than the rooftop bar of the Majestic hotel.
The blaze of light that is Casa Batllo
No one is taking a dip in the pool
After a couple of pleasant hours it is time to return to our room
and step out onto our balcony to enjoy the warm Barcelona night air
and burn the sight of Passeig de Gracia into our minds to be remembered in the future
Sleep....time to sleep
By 5 am i was up again and walking through the hotel lobby to get a double Nespresso and some mini-croissants
It was dark outside but I went out for half an hour to enjoy my coffee and a cigarette.
We always plan to be at an International Airport 3 hours before take-off and this time was no exception. The hotel bellman waved to a nearby waiting taxi and we left the city in the dark.
Now we have 90 minutes to wait before we take off for Newark, New jersey, USA where we will wait for a couple hours for a flight home to Chicago. (It took us 12 hours to get home to Chicago.)
And so our amazing visit to Rome and to Barcelona with an Italian cruise in between was now over and although it has been two years since then, the memory hasn't dimmed and we long to return to both Rome and Barcelona. But when?
We have 4 cruises booked as I write on October 12 2017 and one of them begins in 2 days! Which means that it will be a while, maybe 6 weeks, before I will talk to you again as I will be writing about my new cruise adventures on the Regal Princess on the Cruisecritic.com website.
So, until December, thank you for reading this far!
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