I'd never been to Barcelona before

Ola (Hello) Barcelona.

My very favorite thing to do is to go somewhere I’ve never been before, so when an opportunity to take a short break from work and caring for Val, occurred, I didn’t think twice before deciding to book a trip to Spain.

The timing turned out to be unusually fortunate; I didn’t know until my return that the flight to Barcelona left just prior to the unusual snowstorm that hit Connecticut. My good friend and travel companion on many other journeys, Barbara Borchardt, met me at JFK, and in a pleasant 7½ hours we were seeing the first light of early morning in Barcelona.

It was not far to our small, boutique hotel near the main boulevard, La Rambla, with all the elegant shops, outdoor cafes and nonstop bustling traffic of pedestrians, yellow and black mini-cabs and motorcycles dodging in and out.

Barcelona is an elegant city of wide, tree-lined boulevards and beautifully preserved old buildings; most of which do not exceed nine stories. Additionally, the climate is sunny and warm, so there are many outdoor cafes, lush parks with greenery and flowers and people strolling the streets until late in the evening.

Available too, are excellent museums, restaurants and shops; in short, a most agreeable city in which to live. As a contrast to the elegant, old buildings of the city, most of the furnishings in the hotels and restaurants tend to be minimalist, ultra-modern.

Our hotel room was done in black and white with light switches you can’t figure out, a telephone and television remote that look identical, and a shower so well hidden behind a gray sliding panel we didn’t discover it until the second night. But there was a balcony overlooking the avenue, a helpful staff and a bountiful breakfast every morning.

Barcelona has an excellent system of on-off tourist buses. You buy a two- to three-day pass, but spend the previous night figuring out which museums or sights are on the red, blue or green line; which are on your paid-for special museum pass, which are free, and which ones you have a discount coupon for — all important to consider as there are long lines for most exhibits.

The pre-paid museum pass, which our travel agent, John Weinstein of Adler Travel in Hamden had recommended, was a big time-saver, allowing us to go to the head of the line.

We visited the Miro and the Picasso museums. The later is located in a converted palace. Other outstanding sights were the building known as Casa Batllo, a townhouse featuring swirling staircases, oceanic images and hallucinogenic curves typical of the famed architect, Gaudi, whose many remarkable creations are located in Barcelona. Continued...


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Another madcap Gaudi masterpiece, La Pedrera, has a rooftop of giant chimney pots that look like medieval knights. Supposedly, they were the inspiration for the imperial stormtroopers in the “Star Wars” movies.

The most famous of the many Gaudi buildings, however, is the La Sagrada Familia, a modernistic version of a medieval cathedral, still under construction after more than 100 years. Although unfinished, it is the most visited monument in all Spain.

Dinner is late, usually 8:30 or 9, and my favorite is eating at a tapas bar, where you point to the many wonderful little dishes and snack away while having white wine. I had fried sardines, roasted baby peppers, clams, crispy fried petite potatoes, succulent prawns and ended with ice cream with macadamia nuts.

Wonderful. And all during the dinner, I was chatting with a young man from Sweden who was a dead ringer for Leonardo Di Caprio.

Even more terrific, food was on view the next day when we visited the Boquieria Market, a huge open-air market with exotic fruit, dazzling seafood, mouth-watering pastries, nuts, figs and chocolates.

A one-hour flight took us from Barcelona to Granada to see the indescribable Alhambra, an ancient Moorish palace with a breathtaking view of the entire city.

Unlike sunny Barcelona, we decided that the rain in Spain falls mainly in Granada, where it was also much cooler, one of the reasons the Moors built the palace as a summer residence. That same night, we saw flamenco dancing in a tavern situated in an old cave.

Barbara and I had planned to go to Cordoba, but we both developed some sort of intestinal virus, which kept us hotel bound for a full day, during which we took every prescription and pill we had brought with us and existed on tea and toast delivered by room service.

Still, it was a wonderful trip, and all too soon, time to head home.

- Article by Jean Cherni, founder of the retirement advisory service, Senior Living Solutions. Contact her at jeancherni@sbcglobal.net or 15 The Ponds at Hotchkiss Grove, Branford 06405.

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