Barcelona Day 1 - Happy Birthday Drew!

It was Drew's birthday last week and we decided to take a birthday trip to Barcelona!  I'd been before in college, and it was an amazing, magical time, and I hoped this trip would live up to the last one.  It did!  But in a very different way, of course.  Drew had never been so he was in for a real treat!

Barcelona is...a really cool city.  I absolutely love it and absolutely loved it even more this time and I actually kind of want to live there.  (I've asked Drew about business opportunities there - outlook uncertain.)  It's Spain, but it's also...French-ish, and it feels like a clean, Spanish Paris.  

In the map below, we mostly hung around the dark blue section of Ciutat Veila/Gotic (the older city centre, with the famous street Las Rambles running between there and El Raval), then over to El Born for museums and drinks, then the Eixample later in the trip, and Montjuic on the last day.  Each neighborhood has a different personality type and we loved them all.

We had a ridiculously early flight, bussed it to the city centre, checked in to the hotel, and hit the ground running.

First stop: tapas and wine at Taverna Basca Irati, a cute little place where you stand at the bar and select delicious tapas from multiple plates and the bartender counts the number of toothpicks you have left at the end to charge you!

Then we whipped out our Rick Steves Spain book for a couple of self-guided walking tours, as per usual on a lot of our trips.  He always delivers!  We started at Plaza Catalunya and walked all the way down Las Ramblas, the busy main shopping/tourist street, to the water.

Escriba!  I talked about this place non-stop because Eleanor, Meredith, Stephanie and I ate here every day, multiple times a day on our trip.  Such a cute bakery.

The tree-lined Ramblas.

We briefly stopped in a huge food market that I'll talk more about later.  Lots of fresh food everywhere!

Coolllllllllloorrss!

The harbor where we sat on some steps and enjoyed the sun for awhile.

Then we took Rick's walking tour through Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter), which is the older part of the city centre with Medieval and old Roman buildings.  Beauts.

A tall church tower in the courtyard of an old palace.  I don't have my Rick Steves book with me right now to tell me what it is, but you don't care,  do you?  We can all agree its a pretty picture.

The Roman Temple of Augustus.  REAL old school.

The CATEDRAL!  Gorgeous.  And right by our hotel!

Before we fell asleep, we went to the Picasso Museum.  It's a pretty cool place in a hip and trendy neighborhood (El Born) that mostly touches on his early life and the time he spent here.  Lots of drawings and a couple famous paintings, but it was mostly seeing him try out different techniques and get into his groove.  After a quick cat nap at the hotel to rejuvenate, we were back out on the town to hit up some wine bars and have Drew's birthday dinner!

El Quatre Gats, a quaint cafe where Picasso himself used to hang out!  Picture a 1920s/ Midnight in Paris feel.   I loved it.

We had wine and serrano ham and tomato bread!  Yummm.
Then we stopped by a popular wine bar, Senor Parellyada, for a glass or two of red, but I didn't take any pictures.  Dangit.

And then the birthday dinner was at Cafe de l'Academie, a place recommended by Rick and Trip Advisor!
Side note: this looks like a plate of pasta, right?  It was actually a plate full of calamari ribbons, covering an amazing sauce!  Pretty unique and incredibly delicious.

When Drew ran to the bathroom, I quickly got up and told the waiter in Spanish that it was my husband's birthday and asked if they could just put a tiny candle in his dessert.  They smiled and said no problem.  Imagine my surprise when, while waiting for dessert to come, all the lights in the restaurant go off and it's pitch black, save a candle-lit pastry being followed by a freakin saxophone playing 'Happy Birthday'.  Drew was so confused as to what was happening and I put my face in my hands and said "Umm this is for you.  Holy crap, this is for you and I didn't even realize this was going to happen..."  We were incredibly embarrassed but it was kinda silly and special at the same time.  

Thus ends Day 1, and Drew's 29th birthday.  Happy birthday to my boo, the love of my life and my best friend! I'm happy to be on this adventure with him.  

More next time!