Details

As I've said before, this isn't a vacation-photo blog with postcard-ready, wide-angle shots of popular sights in Barcelona. These are images that you probably won't see on Frommer's or tripadvisor - the ones you have to be on foot to get to, or at least be willing to crop much of the image to isolate something even more interesting. (2nd blogpost of the day! I'm on a roll!)

(Plus, I don't even have a wide-angle lens :) this leaves me with only tight crops anyway!)

So, here's a bunch of photos I took last week while wandering around:

Casa Comalat

This is a detail of a building that is a couple of blocks from my apartment. Amazing mosaic work! It is under construction/renovation right now, which is really sad for me because if you click here you can see it's a cool building. At the moment there are huge sheets covering the front. If you compare this view with one of the others that are in the above link, you can see how the construction has dirtied the spaces between the tiny tiles. I hope I am still in Barcelona when they finish construction.

Around the corner is this mosaic on the side of a church. "Mare de Deu Del Carme."

J. Murria, 85 Roger de Llúria

Wow.. This is a beautiful store. It's a gourmet delicatessen that dates from 1898 and is part of the Modernist Route of Barcelona. A complete image and their site is here. Below are more details..

Vinos de Alella

Marques de Monistrol

agh shiny!!

Chartreuse! Tarragona is a town not far from Barcelona.

Modernist Farmácia

Plenty of these in Barcelona. I believe this one is also on Roger de Llúria. The window-box above the pharmacy is typical of this area.

Around the corner - dragon detail in a gate. Plenty of dragons to be found in Barcelona.

?? It looks cool. :)

This door is on my street. Elaborate!

The next street... spanish redundancy. Redundancy and graffiti. Sounds about right!

My street

I love the interior plaza!

The corner of my street, at sunset. Take that, Cedar Park!

Casa Milá/La Pedrera

Well, here is one of the wide touristy shots I told you would be uncommon - but I had to put this in order to put a better perspective on the next photos and I have never posted about this building before. This is Casa Milá, also called La Pedrera. It's one of the most famous landmarks of Barcelona, and has a very interesting history - see the link if you like! Also, it is famous for going against city building code on multiple counts... what do you think of that, mom?
Casa Milá / La Pedrera wiki link

Famous streetposts on Passeig de Gracia

Now that you've seen the building, I can show you the man painting it! Also you have a better idea of how huge it actually is.

Close-up of the painter

Barcelona from the mountain of Montjuic

Montjuic is a mountain that has fabulous views of the city and the sea. In addition to a fortress at the top, there are also museums, gardens, and Olympic venues from the '92 games. In the 17th century the fortress was in use. There is a lot of history on the hill, but after being in a big city, I love to go for the views.. (click to enlarge!)

view to the north

It's not often the skies are this clear

Part of the military museum, where there are guns, spears, rapiers, crossbows, etc. from the 16th century and after.

Sailboat regatta! Cannons!

The port, which is waiting for my yachts to enter. Only a few more years...

It was a cold day, which meant there were very few tourists.

artillery in the garden. of course!

THAT thing... is called Agbar tower. We all laugh at it. But look behind it.. snowy mountains!

Castle cats!

Bar Inopia: tapas done well

This evening we went to Bar Inopia for some early tapas. Since we've been hearing about (thanks Pop) and reading about it, we were more than ready to check out this place. Heading over there at around 8pm on a chilly night, we found it almost empty so we made a lap around the block. Not fifteen minutes later, there were groups of people streaming in and the bar facing the kitchen had been filled. We took a spot on the wobbly stools across from the bar and had a second to look around this place. Tiles on the wall covered with writing and drawings from people around the world, nicely photography of the food on signs hanging from the ceiling, a multitude of circular fluorescent light fixtures, random blocks of black chalkboard with lists of specials, foods of the day, house wines, and drawings of some of the food itself. Insane! A waiter came up quickly to ask us what we would like to start with, and at that point we realized that we were not in a typical Spanish restaurant..

Empanadas Gallegas

We ordered wine, one red from the Rioja and a white from Penedès. Both were a great value for 3 euros and under per glass. According to articles we read about the restaurant, some of the best tapas to order are the jamón Ibérico croquettes (1.80 € each), patatas bravas (thin potato wedges, lightly fried and served with a spicy sauce and mayonnaise: around 3 €), and the malagueña olives (around 2.50 €). All were simple and delicious, as in so many other bars and restaurants in Spain, but these dishes had much higher quality and it's obvious that each was thoughtfully prepared. The croquettes were so good and flavorful that we had to get two orders. For only 1.80 apiece it was definitely an easy decision!

Carlos getting into some patatas bravas

White wine & patatas bravas? Hell yeah!

A can's worth of Chipirones in their own ink, with the empanada.

Next we had an order of the Empanadas Gallegas (6 €), which were golden-baked pastries filled with bacalao (cod), golden raisins, and some kind of peppery sweetness. At the same time (probably a mistake) we ordered the chipirones (squid) in their own ink (7.50 €). These had been canned, which is considered a good thing by many people. They weren't bad, but I really love the fresher grilled ones and we probably should have not had them at the same time as another fishy dish. Still, we had been curious to try the popular canned seafood ... why not try it at a restaurant famous for its quality?


Finally came dessert. One of the specialties here is also the flan de huevo (egg flan, 2.50 €), which is delivered to your table with a little "uncovering" celebration. It was very good, but even better were the strawberries with caramel sauce and Chardonnay (around 3 €). On top of this little pile of sliced fruit was a sprinkling orange zest and finely ground black pepper. What a combination, and even better with the flan to balance it and the white wine to wash it all away!

We ate up that flan before I could take a picture. Forgive me ;)

After an hour and a half, we could see that there were people waiting to get in so we decided to surrender our seats. We left a tip that the waiter had actually worked to earn (remember, this is Spain..) and let the doorman open the rope that separated us from the sidewalk. Outside in the cold was small and hungry crowd, eyeing that rope and probably our empty stools. Yes, get there early if you want a good seat, but don't expect a comfortable chair - Inopia is still in the style of an "old man" bar where you lean on the bar and talk over small bites for a few hours. Maybe it doesn't sound that appealing, but maybe that's why you should go....

Our part of Barcelona

And now, a short trip around our area...

When you turn from one of the main streets in Barcelona, named Diagonal, onto our street, Balmes, you see this building (which reads "CIRCULO ECUESTRE 1856" ...

...directly across from this one.

There are a lot of buildings from the early 1900s and then the late 1930s in our area. This is under a doorway, looking up.

These apartments are across the street from where we live, but ours doesn't look anything like these!

Some of the interior streets around us are very quiet. Here´s an old car repair shop.

Cookbook store!
¨Know Food¨ in the Gracia section

This basically means bakery in Catalan.

So elaborate!

¨1905¨

There was a market yesterday for the local shops on this street. They had a chance to display some of their wares to draw people inside. I think the most unexpected one was a shop that sells only olive oil.

New construction, old posters, major street, a grouping of little cafes and restaurants...

Motos are the way to travel in this town.

One day I have to go to this creperie!! Along with a few crepe places close to us, there are 4 or 5 sushi restaurants, a Polish bar, an Uruguayan restaurant, 2 Mexican restaurants, and plenty of traditional food and pastry shops!

It ends here, at our nice entrance.