Days 62 thru 67 - Barcelona, Spain

Kim: We had been very lucky with the weather so far on this trip - the only rain we had seen previously was a small drizzle in Vienna. Our luck had now changed. We were greeted in Barcelona with heavy rains, which made getting to our hotel a trying experience. The rain continued on and off for most of our stay, but this did not ruin our fun.

One of the first things we did was take a walk down La Rambla, a wide, tree-lined, pedestrian boulevard in the center of historic Barcelona. La Rambla is also home to hordes of street performers, which can make for some interesting sites.

Also along La Rambla is Mercat de Sant Josep, otherwise known as La Boqueria. This is one of my favorite markets in all of Europe (and I'm a big fan of markets). The market is so big that they give you a map upon entering. Fruit, vegetables, fresh meat, fish, charcuterie, you name it, they have it. There's even a stand that sells all different types of eggs. There are also a few tapas bars and restaurants scattered throughout the market. Brian and I snacked on some fresh fruit smoothies and croquetes de bacala (salt cod fritters) to hold us off until lunch.

Also nearby La Rambla is the Barri Gotic, or Gothic quarter. The quarter is where the Romans originally colonized Barcelona. Today it is home to many Gothic palaces and churches as well as government buildings and shops. We visited two historic churches, La Catedral and Esglesia de Santa Maria del Mar. Both were built during the 13th and 14th centuries.

One thing that we noticed about Barcelona is that is has a lot of public art. We thought to ourselves, "If only Atlanta had a huge metal fish sculpture, maybe people would come visit."

Brian: Just as the city of Rome is dominated with works by Bernini, Barcelona is dominated by Gaudi. Antoni Gaudi was commissioned to build houses, monuments, parks, etc throughout the city, so he definitely left his mark on Barcelona. His most famous project and life's work, La Sagrada Familia, is now a symbol of Barcelona and its number one tourist attraction.

Sagrada Familia is a massively large Roman Catholic church that is so architecturally complex that construction was started in 1882 and isn't scheduled for completion until 2026. Here's a diagram of what the church will look like when completed.

When you walk inside, you stand amongst all of the scaffolding, stone-cutting, and construction work going on. Two facades, one nave, and eight towers have been completed. You can travel to the top of two of the towers for a small fee, where there are excellent views of Barcelona and the top of the church. Here are some pictures from one of the towers.

We had taken an elevator to the top of the tower, but decided to go back down by way of Gaudi's famed spiral staircase, where you get more peeks outside on the way down. If you are claustraphobic or think you might get dizzy turning down the seemingly endless staircase, this is not for you (there is no handrail for the inside hand . . . just a huge hole all the way down).

We saw lots more Gaudi during our stay. We visited Park Guell, which was designed by Gaudi originally as a high-end residential community in the early 1900s, but turned into a park when they couldn't get enough people to move in. This lizard below is probably the most recognizable sculpture in the park (and maybe even Barcelona).

Later in the week, we saw several houses designed by Gaudi (now museums). They definitely stand out from the surrounding buildings with Gaudi's signature style. All I can say is . . . interesting.

Another famous Barcelona resident was Picasso. We made a trip to the Picasso museum on one of the rainy days. The museum itself was pretty good, however, I was a little let down that it only covered works from his time in Barcelona, so there was a huge gap from the early 1900s and when he moved back in the late 1950s (no cubism years).

The remainder of the week was spent leisurely enjoying Barcelona. One afternoon we visited the beach and harbor districts of Port Vell and Port Olimpico. The weather was too windy and cold to go in the ocean, so unfortunately, we had to enjoy it from a distance.

We were hoping to catch an FC Barcelona Futbol (soccer) game while in the city, but FCB was playing away in Milan this week. We were able to find a good tapas bar to catch the game, which was almost as fun/intense. Everyone in the bar was mesmerized by the game. We instantly became FCB fans (mainly because we wanted to leave the bar alive). The game ended in a tie, which was almost as bad as a loss as far as these fans were concerned (no one was very happy). Nonetheless, we had a good time.

We thought it would be a good idea to stay up late our last night to prepare ourselves for Atlanta time, so we decided to hit up a Barcelona club. Clubs in Barcelona don't actually open until 12am and don't close until the sun rises. We showed up to one of the clubs, Razzmatazz, around 12:30am, which we thought would be well after opening time, but to our dismay the club didn't open until 1am. We felt super cool being one of the first people waiting outside in line (yeah, we were those people). The club itself was enormous (it was actually 5 clubs in one). Kim and I found our home in the "Pop Bar," which had a slightly older crowd and wasn't quite as smokey. The main dance floor didn't actually get packed until 3am or so. It looked like it would've been fun, but our night officially ended when a drunk guy fell off a stage onto Kim. She was ok, but we felt like that was our cue to leave.

The next morning, we caught our flight to Atlanta via Heathrow at 11am, and just like that, our adventure was over.

Additional notes/thoughts:

- Spanish Food: After we had been in Italy for a while and were getting tired of Italian food, Brian remarked,"I can't wait until we get to Spain so we can eat Mexican food." Doh. Brian was shocked and chagrined when I informed him that in Spain they eat Spanish food, which is quite dissimilar from the Mexican food he knows and loves. "No tacos?" he asked. Nope. "No cheese dip??" Nope. He was demoralized. Here's a pic of him begrudgingly enjoying some tapas and sangria.

- Mexican Food: One night we were trying to decided between two recommended tapas bars for dinner. While we were examining the menu at one, I noticed that right next door, there was (can you believe it) a Mexican restaurant. One mention to Brian and we were inside and seated with an order of nachos on the way. The food wasn't quite what we're used to in Mexican-American restaurants, but Brian was contented.

- Stupid American Tourist: On the metro one day, a young American couple boarded our train. Mid-transit, the woman got a call on her cell phone and proceeded to have a ten-minute-long conversation that the whole train could hear. She was telling her friend what a fabulous time they were having in Barcelona. "We saw this awesome church today. What was it called?" she asked her husband. "Sagrada Familia," he responded (you would think you'd know the name of the number one tourist site in all of Barcelona). She went on to say, "The only bad thing was that it just so happened to be under construction while we were there. Yeah, the whole inside was gutted, but they left the original architecture, so it was still cool." Are you kidding me lady? Just so happened to be under construction? It's been under construction since 1882! It's never not been under construction! Okay, okay, so I'd forgive you if you just walked by, but you said the whole inside was gutted, so that means you actually paid the 10 euros to go inside where they have tons of signs telling the history of the construction and the fact that they're not renovating an old church, they just haven't finished building a new church!!!! Aarghhh. An older Spanish woman was apparently as ticked off as we were, because after the Americans got off the train, she started yelling at everyone on the train in angry Catalan. No wonder Americans sometimes get a bad rap (we were hoping she wouldn't yell at us). She was still going strong when we got off.

-Wine Snobs: Upon leaving Burgundy, Brian asked me, "Do you think we're wine snobs now?" I ventured to say yes, but Brian disagreed. Then, on our first night in Barcelona, we bought a reasonably priced bottle of Spanish wine to drink before going to dinner. Upon tasting it, Brian almost spit it out, exclaiming, "This tastes like bad grape juice!" Yeah, we're wine snobs now. We highly caution you - do not buy this bottle of wine.

Days 58 thru 61 - Burgundy, France

Over the next several days, we spent some time in the French countryside, staying in the famous wine-producing region of Burgundy. Burgundy is famous for its many Grand Crus (top tier wines), rolling hills, and quaint medieval towns. The region produces red wines made from pinot noir grapes, and white wines from chardonnay grapes. The most famous part of Burgundy is the Cote d'Or, with the Cote de Nuits producing mostly reds in the north, the Cote de Beaune producing mostly whites in the south. The two areas are separated by the town of Beaune, which lies basically in the middle of the Cote d'Or.

We stayed at the Chateau de Melin, a small wine-producing bed and breakfast, housed in a 16th century castle about 10 km southwest of Beaune.

Our main purpose in Burgundy was to relax and become acquainted with the wine. We started by driving down the Cote d'Nuits, stopping at such famous villages such as Gevrey-Chambertin and Nuits-Saint-Georges to do some wine tastings. Many of the wine producers have shops in the towns where you can sample and buy their wines. Additionally, you can tour their caves, the very old, dark, dank "basements" where they store their wine.

In addition to shops in town, we ventured to several chateau and vineyards. Here we are at Clos Vougeot, one of the most famous Grand Cru vineyards in Burgundy.

In Burgundy, the specific plots of land are classified according to quality, with only 33 plots receiving the top classification of Grand Cru. There are signs along the road with the name of the village and the specific name of the vineyard, so you know if you are looking at Grand Cru, Premier Cru, Village, or Regional grapes.

We also visited Chateau de Meursault in the Cote de Beaune and did an extensive tasting in their endless caves. Even though a chateau or producer is located in one specific village, they may own vineyards and plots of land all over Burgundy. Chateau de Meursault has widespread holdings, so we were able to try both reds and whites from all over the Cote d'Or.

Because we were in Burgundy in early September, we got to witness the beginning of the harvest. All of the grapes are picked by hand, so we saw lots of people in the fields, baskets on their backs, working to harvest the grapes at their peak ripeness.

On Saturday, we drove into Beaune to explore the town. In the morning we wandered around the weekend market and saw the famous Hospices de Beaune with its Flemish tile roof.

After lunch, we headed for the main event, the Marche aux Vins (wine market). Here, we wandered their caves for two hours tasting over a dozen wines. We had fun trying to describe the wines (spicy, with a hint of blackberry), and our descriptions obviously grew more creative, and more silly, the more wine we drank.

While in Burgundy, we also made it a point to thoroughly sample the local cuisine. We had escargot (I even got Brian to eat one) and boeuf bourguignon (a sort of beef and wine stew), coq au vin (chicken cooked slowly in wine), and ouefs en meurette (eggs poached in wine - are you starting to see a pattern?).

Our time in Burgundy was very relaxing. Our days generally went something like this: eat breakfast, drive the countryside and taste wine, eat lunch and have wine, drive the countryside and taste wine, nap, drink a bottle of wine, eat dinner and drink wine. Pretty demanding, huh? Our relaxation was also aided by the general beauty of the region. The pictures below only scratch the surface of the rolling vineyards, quaint villages, and sprawling chateaux of the region.

On our last day, we drove south to the town of Cluny through the Cote Chalonnaise. Cluny is home to the ruins of the 10th century Abbey of Cluny, which was the largest and most powerful church in the Middle Ages before St. Peter's Basilica was built. The building is mostly in ruins today because it's stones were looted during the French Revolution.

We continued driving south and stayed the night in Lyon in preparation for our flight the next morning. Though only in the city for a few hours, we briefly explored and had dinner at a traditional Lyonnais bouchon.

Additional thoughts/notes:
- Don’t wear a white shirt to a wine tasting. Only bad things can happen.
- The French are very particular about their eating times. Lunch is 12-2pm. No earlier, no later. And all other shops are closed during lunch. Do not have a late breakfast, attempt to taste wine from 12-2pm, and then try to eat lunch around 2:30pm. You will end up thirsty and hungry.
- Brian was sick of French radio in our rental car, so he decided to buy a cheap CD at the Beaune market. I was wandering through the market when he made this decision, so I wasn't there to provide the usual monitoring that keeps Brian out of trouble. He bought a "King of Pop" remix CD expecting to hear dance remixes of Michael Jackson songs. However, he failed to see that on the back the songs were sung by "Mickeal Jackson." Needless to say, Brian wasn't very happy with the casio keyboard remakes he heard when he listened to the CD.
- On one of our wine tastings, when we went down into the cave, we mistakenly stumbled into a band of drunken Swedes. There were at least thirty of them (on some winery tour), and their two boisterous leaders quickly befriended us and tried to assimilate us into the group. When we asked them where they were from, they said, "Sweden, land of Ikea." Brian responded, "We have an Ikea in Atlanta" to which they responded, "Of course you do!!" I think they were ready to adopt us and take us on their tour bus, but we sneaked out while they were preoccupied with their next wine.