BARCELONA: Chocolate & Churros; Barri Gotic; Jewish Quarter & Camp Nou

Hello family and friends: Well, the sky was a brilliant blue, when we stepped out our door this morning. Jet lag is still a bit of a problem, and I don't think either of us fell asleep until around 3:30 am. Oh well, who wants to sleep, anyway...

It was a chilly 9 degrees first thing, but somehow it didn't feel too bad. It must be cold to the locals, because you see them in heavy jackets and winter toques,(like they are going to the ski hill). As we started walking towards the historical Barri Gothic area, we noticed a fabulous, bustling café called "La Pallaresa Chocolate Restaurant". I had not paid any attention to the name. It just happened to be about 4 or 5 doors from our apartment! We hadn't yet discovered it. All I can say, is it was another delightful surprise. We ordered the usual coffee, and pastry, not realizing we were in a "chocolate restaurant". After our coffee, I glanced over at the table next to us. Three people were dipping churros in cups of thick, dark chocolate. This is something we just do not see at home, and I found myself actually staring, it looked so amazing. Who has a cup of thick, dark chocolate for a snack? I could not let this experience pass by - so after we already paid our bill for the coffee, we decided to stay and enjoy this Spanish treat. We ordered one cup of the rich, thick, dark chocolate. The cup came to the table, along with 4 fresh churros. What an incredible delight. There is just nothing like warm, liquid, semi-sweet chocolate. We dunked the churros in, just like the locals, and finished every bit. I would highly recommend this Spanish delicacy!

So, sufficiently full of pastry, we continued on toward the Barri Gotic neighborhood. The Barri Gotic area is the centre of the old city of Barcelona. It is characterized by narrow streets, with tall, old buildings. Some of the streets are dark, and hold a feeling of mystery.

I did not realize that Picasso had lived and worked in this neighborhood for a period of 9 years. Within this neighborhood, is the old Jewish Quarter named, "El Call". "Call" means "narrow street". We combined 2 walking tours of this area. One self guided tour we used was through MUHBA EL CALL (History Museum of Barcelona). It gave an interesting route through the medieval Jewish Quarter. Along with this guide, we also used another route from National Geographic (Walking Barcelona. Between the two tours, we felt we were given a good understanding of the area. If you start your tour around 9:00 am, you should be able to advance through the area in relative peace. We arrived a bit later, and there were already too many people - even a few bike tours trying to maneuver themselves through the narrow streets! I cannot imagine what this area would be like in high season. We went into a couple of beautiful old churches with incredible gothic lanterns and strange engravings in the floor tiles. One of them is Santa Maria del Pi (Saint Mary of the Pine Tree), a 14th century gothic church known for the "giants" that date back to before 1600 and are a highlight of parades and Catholic feast days and known for their traditional dances. Apparently they were retired by King Charles III who said they were just too ugly for religious celebrations, but in 1799 they were pardoned for their ugliness and brought back out to join in religious festivities.)

On one wall, you can see inscriptions of Hebrew characters. The inscriptions are on the stones that originally came from the Jewish Cemetery on Montijuic Hill (which I referred to in the blog yesterday). I learned the Jewish people once owned land and houses on Montijuic. There was also a Jewish Cemetery there. On this walking tour, we came to Placa de Sant Felip Neri. This is a tiny square, hidden in the shadows of the cathedral. In 1938, during the Spanish Civil War, a fascist bomb killed 42 people, mostly children. You can see the holes, and scars on the walls in the square. It's incredible to look at these walls and think of the tremendous grief and sorrow that took place in this sunny little square.

After we completed our tour, we went back to our apartment to get ready for our pilgrimage to Camp Nou (pronounced Camp Now) Stadium for a football game to see FC Barcelona play Spanish Primera division team Getafe. Ron was just so excited about this. We packed our water and snacks, and since we wanted more exercise (after the cup of chocolate), we embarked on what turned out to be a 1.5 hour journey to the stadium. As we approached, crowds of people were streaming from all directions, carrying flags, and wearing colorful scarves and jerseys, and jester hats, all in Barcelona team colours. There were even babies with headphones! I must say this is the only time I have ever seen grown men hippety hop! We made our way up to our seats. It was fascinating to be in a crowd of approximately 80 thousand people. A father and son sat next to me. The little boy was around 8 years old. He was even more fanatic than his father, yelling commands to the players. During the game I was so relaxed in the afternoon sun that I closed my eyes and drifted off for a few minutes. I made Ron delete the photo he took of me during my quiet time. The final score was 6-0 for Barcelona. The fans sang, waved flags, screamed in excitement, stomped their feet and stood to do the "wave" all around the stadium. It was a memorable experience.

When the game was over, we started back to our area (Barri Gotic). We encountered such crowds at the Metro stop, we decided to start walking to a Metro stop further on. It was so crowded, one train didn't even stop. The next train was so jammed, we couldn't make our way into the car. After that, we were able to get on and it was so crowded, our faces were about 6 inches from each other. It was worth it though! We arrived at Placa de Catalunya metro stop and moved through the mob on La Rambla. After 10 minutes or so, we arrived for tapas at "Bilbao Berria". This was our second time here. It was crowded, and we waited around 15 minutes for a table. Many people came in and stood at the counter to eat rather then wait for a table. Soon we were seated, and this is where we had supper tonight. We tried many delicious tapas. Each tapa has a long wooden skewer in the centre. The skewers are collected, and counted at the end of your meal. You are charged by the number of wooden skewers. It's a great system.

Now back at our apartment. Since it's Saturday evening, the streets are noisy and there's lots of laughter and excitement around! Tomorrow - Looking forward to another glorious day ... Karen

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