Barcelona: Day 2

After a very long non-stop first day in Barcelona, we both were a bit tired and both had very sore calves. This, in my mind, is a recipe for a slower pace day. We started by stopping off at a sort of sketchy cafe near our hotel to get some cafe con leche. It was almost more of a diner and seemed to contain mainly local workmen. Smoking is still allowed inside of bars and restaurants in Spain and the place smelled quite smoky. But the cafe con leche was good enough and we were shortly on our way.

Our first destination for the day was the aquarium. The second largest in Europe (don't ask me where the largest is!), the aquarium is located on a really big pier extending into the sea. While this sounds like a description of the Seattle aquarium as well, I can assure you it is really quite different! It was quite expensive, but after not paying any money to go in anywhere the day before, we were willing to up the cash to get in. The aquarium consists of a variety of smaller tanks full of all kinds of funky looking fish (including some very unattractive Moray eels!) and one very very large tank that you pass under first along a partial tunnel on a moving walkway, and then in more of a full-tunnel on a moving walkway. While I found the walkway situation a bit weird, this was a very cool part of the aquarium. The tank contained a lot of smaller fish, as well as some sharks and sunfish, which for some reason I find very entertaining. A few sharks swam over the tops of the tunnels and I can assure you that those teeth look very frightening from that angle! This was followed up by some sort of learning bits (where we watched some string rays get fed, which I assure you was a strange thing to watch) and then paid an extortionate price in the cafeteria for some bottled water. The things we do when desperate!

After this we started to head over to the beach. To get there we had to walk down a big sort of promenade and then weave through sort of a sketchy neighborhood. We stopped in a random little shop walking through said neighborhood to buy some sandwiches, then sat on a bench along the beach to eat them. Luckily the sandwiches were quite tasty (and cheap!). It was a nice and sunny day but not exactly warm, but that didn't stop some locals from playing 'football' on the beach, one of whom was sporting a speedo. Ah, Europe. After enjoying some sitting time, we moved to another bench (this time armed with Magnum ice cream bars and diet coke) and had some more sitting time.

Our next stop was the Parc Guell, way across town (thanks Barcelona underground!) and up a hill. It's a park that was designed by Gaudi and originally intended to be an upper class housing development. Alas, only one house was eventually built but there's a very nice big park there now. It's home to some frequently photographed Barcelona landmarks, including the mosaic gecko and the curving mosaic benches (as seen above). Needless to say, we made use of these benches for a bit of sitting time. Oh, I might also add that the park is high up on a hill above the city, and you do have to walk up a good portion of that hill from the station, so we though the sitting was earned! We then walked around to the quieter bits of the park and found another bench for some extended sitting time while we decided what to do next. It was by this time a little after 4 and we decided we should return to the hotel by foot and then have a bit of a respite until it was dinner time. Ah yes, our second day in Spain and we were already diving headlong into the siesta concept!

Instead of heading again into the medieval quarter for dinner, we went to the Passeig de Garcia (or whatever it's called!), one of the main north-south boulevards in town that terminates at the Placa d'Espanya, where La Rambla then takes over and leads down to the water. The street is home to a lot of fancy stores, some moderniste architecture, and as we discovered, a very cool wine bar! We stopped off there for a pre-dinner glass and some fine Spanish olives. We then went to a random little casual tapas place as recommended in the guide book a few blocks down, and then returned to the wine bar for some more fine Catalonian wine and a cheese plate! There was quite an uptown-downtown contrast between the two places, but both had their charms! Thanks to the siesta, we were again able to stay out until a respectable hour (the Spanish would probably judge us for going to sleep so early, but we were pleased).