A walk in the heat

Next morning we got up quite early given the fact that we toured the city for a good part of the night as well. The wonderful thing about Barcelona compared to many offer European great cities is that it is alive 24/7. We walked down to La Ramblas and enjoyed the enormous amount of street performers who have dresses up to anything from a salad to a guy sitting on a toilet!

Suddenly a huge African American guy stated to yell up in the middle of the street towards a woman that he would kick her ass repeatedly if she tried to pick his pockets again. Picking pockets is sadly a natural thing in any big city and especially on La Ramblas.

We walked towards the Placa de Catalunya and passed by the Hard Rock Café of Barcelona before heading towards The Palau de la Música Catalana (Palace of Catalan Music).

The concert hall is  designed in the Catalan modernista style by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. It was built between 1905 and 1908 for the Orfeó Català, a choral society founded in 1891 that was a leading force in the Catalan cultural movement that came to be known as the Renaixença (Catalan Rebirth).

The project was financed primarily by the society, but important financial contributions also were made by Barcelona's wealthy industrialists and bourgeoisie. The Palau won the architect an award from the Barcelona City Council in 1909, given to the best building built during the previous year. Between 1982 and 1989, the building underwent extensive restoration, remodeling, and extension under the direction of architects Oscar Tusquets and Carles Díaz and in 1997, the Palau de la Música Catalana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with Hospital de Sant Pau.

After visiting this stunning building we decided to just back and forth the small streets.

The temperature was already pasted the 30 degrees and we had hardly reached lunch yet. During our walk we found a lot of wonderful small spots that easily could have taken the whole day to explore.

We continued the walk in the magnificent Barri Gotic and passed by the Museu Picasso. I had been in there and my friend Jacob wanted to see more of the city before visiting the museum besides that there was an enormous queue in front the museum. It has one of the most extensive collections of artworks by Pablo Picasso and therefore this is one of the most popular and most visited museums in Barcelona. The museum is housed in five adjoining medieval palaces.

We continue towards Santa María del Mar, an imposing church built between 1329 and 1383, at the height of Catalonia's maritime and mercantile pre-eminence.

The church is quite dominating in the Ribera district and it is an outstanding example of Catalan Gothic, with a purity and unity of style that are very unusual in large mediaeval buildings. We entered in hope of finding the church somewhat cooler than the heat outside, but we were disappointed; it was just as warm probably due to the heat of the night before where we had more than 30 degrees all night.

I front of the church we went in to a bar to get a cup of coffee only to find out that they only served wine. Some guy changed water into wine and we changed quickly coffee into a cold glass of cava which I afterwards was just what we needed. We hung around with the two British waiter for a while talking about their wine card. The time had passed 1pm and we decided to walk towards the beach and the harbour to look at the boats.

We crossed the Placa de Pau Vila and found ourselves enjoying a cold beer in a café called Maristany on Passeig de Joan de Borbo.

Barcelona Harbour

The café was really nice because it was like the whole city was walking by on their way to and from the beach. We stayed there for quite some time and just enjoyed the sun and talking about nothing for hours.

We broke up from the café and walked down to the beach at the Placa del Mar. Here we were lucky to find a table at the beach restaurant, and we had a late lunch there. We left the establishment around 5.30 pm and headed for the Marina and looked at some of the nice boats there and then went back to the hotel for a shower and some rest before we were going out eating.

My friends David and Inge were coming to Barcelona that same evening and we had planned to meet each other at the Placa Real later that evening.

They called and were heading for their hotel close to where we were livings as well.

At just after 8.30 pm we met David, Inge, their son Jonathan and one of his friends at Placa Real. Jacob and I were at that point already enjoying a cold beer at one of the cafés in the eastern corner of the square. It was a joy meeting them again; approximately one month earlier I had been having a long weekend together with them in Corsica and it was fun to see them here. They had been one week 100 km north of Barcelona and were going back 2 days later, but at least we had an evening together.

We were sitting talking for more than our before the boys went out looking for a place to eat. They recommended that we went in to Taxidermista which I knew from some year back where the restaurant was packed all the time. Today it looked like the next door one had taken over, but they had a way to long a queue.

We had a good meal in Taxidermista and afterwards went for a walk in Barri Gotic and especially around the Barcelona Cathedral. After some time they boys had to go to bed so we turned back to La Rambla and their hotel. We sent the boys up to their hotel room and went for a last drink in the neighbourhood before we called it a day. It had been a long and good day in one of the most fabulous cities in Europe to my opinion.