Barcelona, March 2012

Barcelona

Our plan had been to meet our friends Brent and Kari in Barcelona at the end of March and then travel north to Figueres to visit the Dali Museum and spend the night before heading to our rental house in Quillan, France.  Unfortunately they were unable to make the trip, but since we had prepaid everything we decided to just do it by ourselves.  I used a big bunch of frequent flyer miles to get us Business Class on Lufthansa via Munich and it was worth each and every hard earned mile. The flights were, as you would expect from Lufthansa, efficient and on time. They were also very comfortable which meant that we arrived in Barcelona relaxed and ready to enjoy all that that fair city has to offer.

I had booked us into a Best Western Hotel, right in the heart of one of the nicest neighborhoods of Barcelona. For those of you that only know Best Westerns from trips in the USA, I can assure you that they are nothing like that in Europe. For the most part they are excellent hotels, in great locations with clean large rooms, free wi-fi and free full breakfasts, and very reasonable.  This was a great hotel and from the moment the taxi dropped us off until we loaded the rental car for departure, we were treated like royalty.  Our room was really a mini suite with a separate room for sitting and working and it was just right as a base for our explorations.

For three days we just wandered around, ate and drank marvelous food, wine and sherry, and enjoyed the diversity of a major European city. (http://gallery.me.com/wbyxbee#100552)  This is a beautiful city with wide avenues, lovely buildings - many in our neighborhood designed by Gaudi - and of course there is the Sagrada Familia which still isn’t completed.  But hey, they only started it in 1882!  All too soon it was time to head out to Figueres but first we had to go and pick up the rental car.  If you are ever going to rent a car in Europe, rent it from a company called Sixt. They have the nicest people working for them and they have really good prices on great cars if you are willing to have a manual transmission and use diesel.

Since we had planned on having this car for two weeks of touring, we had reserved a mini-van that had lots of windows and sat high.  It wasn’t the type of car you would want for city driving but we managed to get it back to our hotel, double park for a bit to load luggage, and head out of town heading north to our next Best Western hotel.  Cindy was a marvelous navigator and we had no problems until we finally got to Figueres. There all maps failed us and only by driving around and around did we finally find the garage to the hotel.  We had a lovely time there and had a very good meal - for a tourist town - and the next day we were off to France.

More later, ciao for now,  William