Day 5 - Welcome to Barcelona
By Arnd
The last day is always one that's defined by being departure day. The journey essentially comes to an end — the journey is the destination, after all — and at the same time the departure begins, because we both need to head to different places. For now, it's off to Barcelona, one of my favourite cities in Europe.
We drive off content and stuffed after the excellent breakfast in Arles and cross the border into Spain shortly after. Once again I notice that I'd really like to see Andorra sometime. And once again it falls victim to the schedule's red pen.
The hunger comes back soon enough anyway. I don't want to know how much weight I'll have put on during this trip... And this time, to avoid unnecessarily slowing down our journey, I simply search Google Maps for a restaurant near our route that's open and has more than 4.5 stars in its reviews.
Choosing a Restaurant with Planning
Oddly enough, almost all restaurants have between 4.2 and 4.5. 4.6 or above is super rare. I then find Terrassa Gaudí with 5.0 on TripAdvisor albeit with only 8 reviews, and 4.9 on Google, which with 108 reviews is extremely impressive.
Event Venue in the Middle of Nowhere?
Terrassa Gaudí is obviously an event venue and probably also a popular excursion restaurant. The well-maintained terrace, which is probably beautifully covered in vines in other seasons, was being renovated, but we were still allowed to sit outside at a table.
Gaudí?? Gaudí...
I ask the waiter where the name comes from and especially the connection to Gaudí. He waves me to follow him and leads me through the indoor dining area to the small chapel that nestles against the main building. There he points to the small round window and explains that Gaudí painted it.
After that he shows me a secret passage in the cellar, initially made of bricks, later transitioning into rock. It's so well-maintained it looks as though it was just completed. I get a claustrophobic feeling so quickly that I prefer to turn back.
Better: we head towards the wine cellar. Some historic treasures are stored there — absolutely incredible! Cool event spaces here. If you can get people all the way out here, that is.
Food Time!
Right, back upstairs. The menu is in Catalan, I understand less than half of it. So I ask the nice waiter to simply serve us a small lunch menu consisting of his favourites. He nods and disappears.
And What Food...
A little later he returns with two plates of raw fish and onions. I think: "Damn", that's probably gone wrong. I take the fish for mackerel and I'm not a huge fan... It is indeed mackerel. A really light flavour, nothing at all of that heavy, oily taste. Great texture! I'm no fish expert, but I believe this must be a very fresh product.
Then comes truffled fried eggs. They were to die for! It slowly dawns on me that the reviews have led us to a place where people have a passion for fine dining. And the know-how to deliver it. And all this far from civilisation in the Montnegre National Park!
My new friend comes round the corner with two different croquettes. One with cod, one with salmon. One of each for Josh and for me. So delicious that we ate them before I even thought of taking a photo.
The next course is sliced smoked salmon. With bread, a kind of creamy butter and dried fish skin. The textures and flavours are wonderful counterpoints, especially with the fish skin!
Dried Artichokes?
Next up is a dried artichoke with Sobrasada and Brie cheese. What's Sobrasada? An air-dried raw sausage typical of Mallorca, with the main ingredients being pork and lard.
The combination tastes surprisingly good to me, even though the flavours go in a similar direction here. And even though I don't like artichokes.
What later appears on the bill as "Chuleta de Vaca Vieja" sends Josh and me into an enthusiastically-greedy-silent eating mode. Later we ponder whether today's meat was better than yesterday's in France. We puzzled over what breed this could have been that could so effortlessly hold its own against Charolais?
Eastern Europe Rules!
Together with the waiter, we look for the stamp showing the origin. Now hold on tight — the beef was from Poland! I've never heard of it as a particularly good source for beef. But somehow it managed to completely blow us away. Let's forget the chatter and note: Chapeau!
The dessert was called "Brazo de Gitano", which roughly translates to "Gypsy's arm". Political correctness clearly hasn't made it here yet ;) Tastes good, but compared to the preceding courses it's clearly a step down and more generic.
In the end we pay less than €120 including three glasses of good house wine. That's more than fair and at this quality level almost a bargain! One more complimentary dessert wine and we're off to Barcelona.
Arriving in Barcelona...
After just under an hour we reach the c'Elisabet. A pedestrian zone that our sat nav even has us driving through in violation of a few traffic rules. Exciting, but nobody seems particularly bothered. Only I'm quite tense, because risk-taking Spaniards and tourists are "flowing" around my car everywhere.
Casa Camper — Camping in Barcelona?
We stop at a small square and I walk to the hotel Casa Camper. 4.7 stars on Google, chosen among TripAdvisor's "Best of the Best."
The name reminds me of the Mallorcan shoe brand. And that's exactly where it comes from. The owning family has a hotel in Barcelona and one in Berlin. Inside it's somehow cool. With a very distinctive interior design. Everything very well-maintained. The rooms on our floor extend across the corridor — to the left from the hallway you go into the bedroom and bathroom, to the right into a living room with a hammock. Very cool!
Interior Design: "Distinctive"
Next to the bed there are a pair of slippers each. One in green-brown, one in pink. I briefly wonder whether they're meant as a giveaway. But I don't quite believe it myself... Downstairs there's a kind of dining room. In the adjacent small kitchen, snacks are prepared and then presented in this small room that basically consists of shelving and a fridge. The small meals are free, as are the non-alcoholic drinks. Then there are more communal areas, one with an "Honesty Bar" where the hotel hopes for honest guests. It's been 15 years since Casa Camper opened. You can see that a bit in the interior design, but it has its very own style that's somehow so distinctive that it almost seems timeless again.
Off Into the City!
But first we want to experience the city. We throw our luggage into the rooms and storm back out. The location is really brilliant. The Elisabet is a small pedestrian zone with lots of little shops and restaurants or mainly bars, leading directly onto "La Rambla" at the level of the Barça fan shop. For football fans: the much larger fan shop is at the Camp Nou stadium, by the way. I have the silly idea that we should visit a market hall. For whatever reason. Of course Barcelona has four of them in the immediate vicinity. Of course I don't navigate us to the famous Pasaje del Mercat, instead we head to the Mercat Santa Caterina in the middle of the bustling Ribera quarter.
Why this particular market hall? No idea. Maybe it reminded me of Santa Catalina here in Mallorca...
I'm particularly impressed by the butcher. He bribes me with little Jamón snippets, so that I'll favourably mention somewhere that his IG account is carles_gourmet_xarcuters. But the other stalls are worth seeing too. One sells nothing but eggs. In every conceivable size and colour.
Later we head towards the touristy old town. With its small narrow alleys and the multitude of extremely mediocre "restaurants". We end up at Nemrut. TripAdvisor warns with a not particularly impressive rank of 8586 out of 8794 restaurants in Barcelona. But you've got to hand it to them for achieving that!
Choosing a Restaurant Without Planning
I only see that later though. We simply plonk ourselves down because there's a free table on the terrace. And we're not just exhausted. We're thirsty! As happens, you drink and chat and get annoyed about the silly conversations at the next table and suddenly you order food after all.
Mediocre Food in Barcelona!
I order Patatas Bravas, trying to minimise the risk of asking too much complexity of the kitchen. Josh is a bit more adventurous with his croquettes. But in the end it's both edible and we're simply sitting beautifully in the middle of Barcelona enjoying life!
Later we return to the hotel via a few detours. I also learn what Social Clubs are. And we sit pondering on the rooftop terrace of Casa Camper. About half of us actually manage to catch the plane the next morning. I need a bit longer, but I sleep sensationally well for it...
So, that's it then. The road trip is over. I hope it was a bit fun reading along about what we experienced during this exciting week without plans or concept. We did well with it, got into conversations with lots of nice and open people. Learned a lot. Yes, bad pun... Many thanks to Josh, a wonderful travel companion. Hopefully we can do it again soon!
We started a small fundraiser on IG for Ukraine. I'd be over the moon if one or the other of you would like to contribute at https://www.instagram.com/avwedemeyer/.
Have a great time!
Arnd