Barri Gotic / Gothic Quarter on a Sunday

The Gothic Quarter of Barcelona is old, cramped, dark, and full of charm. Here is the kind of place where you hear of visitors to Europe getting lost in the winding alleyways and loving it. Every turn of the corner varies greatly - street performers here, rows of restaurants or confectioners' shops here, and deserted alleys there. As always, click to enlarge the pictures..

A typical, old Gothic Quarter street.

Lights coming through the Christmas/Nadal/Navidad decorations.

Here you can get an idea of the narrow streets crowded by the tall apartment buildings.

Clásic Gótic Restaurant, on a street leading to the seafront.

Spraypaint artist in quiet Plaza Mercé.

Colors of the walls in the sunset

One of the exterior city walls from the old Roman settlement.

Some oddly-shaped rounded plaza in the Barri

One elaborate Santa/Papa Noel!

Um... curio store? Who knows... they have Phrenology head.

What would Europe be without delicious pastries?

Papabubble confectionary

Who knew there was a market for artisan caramels? The signage is sharp.

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.

Paris part 3: walking through the city

Many European cities are deceptively compact, which means that not having a car is no problem. Traveling by foot through Paris is a great way to see much of the city in just a few days. Of course there's always the (OLD) metro to speed things up a little, but who really wants to travel underground in a city like this?

A quiet street in Montmarte.

The last vineyard in Paris, also in Montmarte.

A view of the Seine river, Eiffel Tower, and the island.

One of the many garden stores to the side of the Notre Dame. It was a really relaxing place to be after navigating through the tourists and trying to find a meal for less than 30 Euros. (We failed... and it was Chinese food. wtf?)

!!!

There's probably some kind of story behind these pokey deals (and a better name...) They are spread throughout the city and most of them have some different, elaborate design to keep people away from some thing or another. This one is called "Devil Fork Tails in a Hurricane." I bet I could still climb over it, no problem...

hm. picnic time?

Champs-Élysées fountain surrounded by sculptures.

As you can see, the French love their hedges and sculptures. It was incredible how many famous sculptures we saw outside, especially in this section.

And finally, a view of Paris from above. Not a very nice picture but I still like it.