Day 2, July 24
So much to see, so little time
. Part 2
We soon were riding along the street again, passing a lot of beach areas and big hotels before coming to the Forum and then on to the Sagrada Familia.
There, we were stunned by the sheer amount of people queueing up to get inside the church and the amount of people who wanted to get onto our bus. So I moved back to Toms row to make more room for other travelers. We drove all around the Sagrada Familia
before we headed towards Park Guell and the stop for the little blue tram that heads up to the Tipidabo, a mountain towering over the city and on its top there is a beautiful church and an amusement park. We stayed on board the bus as we had decided on doing a full round in the morning
and then in the afternoon using the bus to take us to places we wanted to visit and explore. Soon we were driving towards the Casa Batllo again
and reached the Placa Catalunya again.
The trip had taken 2 ½ hours and it was getting close to noon, so we decided to walk around a bit in the area and find a place to eat.
Well, easier said than done. Spaniards eat late, so we were pretty early and about every restaurant we walked up to was still closed. The ones that were open didnt look too inviting so we gave them a miss. It was hot, we were thirsty and getting tired and we desperately wanted to find somewhere that looked inviting. After about half an hour we decided to head back to Plaza de Catalunya and bite the bullet and eat at one of the tourist trap restaurants there. And while we were heading there we saw a small restaurant right at the next corner, which looked well lit and people were heading inside. Well, so did we.
It was tiny, but we were quickly led to a table for two and handed a menu.
I think Tom had ordered a beer, while I had some Diet Coke and then we decided to share some tapas and order two appetizers as our lunch. Drinks were served immediately and our tapas arrived pretty soon after that.
We had ordered
Fried Mushrooms with herbs, garlic and ham, which were a bit on the greasy side, but very tasty,
Patatas Bravas, which are practically fried junks of potato, nicely seasoned and dowsed in Sauce Catalan which was made from mayonnaise, ketchup and spices think cocktail sauce. We started munching on both and they really hit the spot but filled you up quickly because of the sauce. We had ordered a third tapas and it was served a little later, the
Croquettes which were potato croquettes filled with ham. They came out sitting on the Sauce Catalan and there was even more of it on top. We scraped most of it off and tried it, but it wasnt as good as the ones we had had the day before. It took us quite some time to nibble on the tapas but since our appetizers took some time to come out we didnt mind. Well, our appetizers were still not served once we had actually finished our tapas and ordered second drinks.
About 10 minutes later a server came by to apologize as they had forgotten about the appetizers and they were now on their way. Tom had ordered some
Open Faced Toasted Focaccia with smoked salmon, grilled veggies and anchovies which was very tasty and nice and I had ordered the
Grilled Vegetable Stack with goats cheese and Balsamic glaze. I was expecting this to be hot, but it came out just luke warm, but it still was very tasty and much lighter than it looked. Once we finished our meal we rolled out of the restaurant and thought about what to do.
There was not enough time to do the other route of the sightseeing tour as we had tickets for Park Guell this afternoon. It was hot and we decided to just take a break. So we slowly strolled towards Plaza Catalunya and since we were passing El Corte Ingles, a huge department store, we decided to hop inside and have a look if we could find some snacks and local drinks to take back to our hotel. The food store was enormous and we bought some cookies, chips and drinks to try. With that heavy load in hand we slowly made our way up the Rambla Catalunya
until we reached our hotel.
To be continued ..........