Barcelona de nou.

Hello, my dears.

When last we spoke, it was of the end of our marvelous trip to Apulia and Basilicata. I have no such magnificent tales with which to regale you on this occasion; however, there is much ground to cover and very little time before we head to the US for Christmas, so... let's get started.

First, in August, I dragged Mike to our very first entirely-vegan pop-up, and it was shockingly excellent. The food was absolutely beautiful, and soooo very tasty; unfortunately, the lighting in the place was crap (as was the camera on my phone, which I may have previously mentioned on more than one occasion), so I have only this single photo by which to remember the experience:

That, friends, is a three-layer "lasagna" made with zucchini, tomatoes, and three different pestos (almond, basil, tomato). Stunning and delicious.

Shortly thereafter, we headed off to Barcelona for another long weekend (yes, again--what? it's great), and this time managed to fit in a tremendous food tour in the Gracia neighborhood, featuring, among other things:

A trip through the lovely Mercat de la Llibertat (where we sampled some marcona almonds and a cold salad with white beans, cod, tomatoes, and olives); 

at Bodega Neus, the absolute best vermouth we've ever had (in punchbowl-sized glasses, no less)...

...served alongside some insanely fresh prawns; 

at the Sant Tirs bakery, a bit of one of these flatbreads, topped with eggplant and red pepper;

meanderings past some mind-boggling Modernismo buildings; 

a visit to a bomb shelter from the Spanish Civil War (currently located in an underground car park);

a sampling of sausages, hams, and cheeses at the Mercat de l'Abaceria (where we also had a variety of olives, one or two of which I actually liked!);

charcoal-grilled snails with garlic aioli and rosemary-mustard sauces...

...fresh cheese with honey...

...and some red wine imbibed from a traditional decanter, as demonstrated here by Mike, at the marvelous, homey Cal Boter;

and yet more Modernismo at the tail end. (Not a Gaudi itself, but very much in his style.)

Not pictured: our opener of fried egg, sobrassada, and honey, and a stewed concoction of pig feet and snout ("cap i pota," way tastier than one might guess!) with white beans, at La Pubilla; a Swiss roll-like thing, egg yolk custard candy, almond turron, and the most divine triple-chocolate-covered almonds (white, dark, and cocoa powder!) at Pastisseria Montserrat; delicious delicious frosty horchata (made with tiger nuts) from a wee cafe next to l'Abaceria; and some marvelous squid stewed with onions, and grilled bread with onions-in-olive oil, at Cal Boter. Ughhhhhhh, so much good food in one single neighborhood of this spectacular city!!

But enough about food, at least, for a few paragraphs... After the tour, we stopped by Gaudi's La Pedrera, since it was just around the corner. (You've seen this before, so I'll keep it relatively brief.)

The guy was insane, but definitely a genius.

The entire attic feels like a rib cage.

Insanity on the roof.

As we somehow hadn't absolutely ruined ourselves (...we usually do...) on the food tour, we found dinner at Oaxaca, a Mexican restaurant in Barceloneta.* We shared some blue corn chips and an excellent spicy salsa; an impressive slab of chicharrones; some tableside-made guacamole; a plate of green ceviche (with tomatillos, cucumber, lime, and avocado); an heirloom tomato/nopales salad; and a plate of shredded pork carnitas served with some crazy-good homemade tortillas. 

Next morning, we headed up into the hills to our next Gaudi stop: Torre Bellesguard. Between 1900 and 1909, Gaudi created (but didn't quite finish, due to diminishing funds) a palace-y house on grounds containing the remnants of a 15th-century castle, around which he constructed gardens and small outbuildings, and all of this was the result.

Separate from the main house is a small part of the original castle which Gaudi "rebuilt," really the only thing anywhere that's not constructed in his usual fancy-crazy-organic style, in an attempt to respect the history of the site.

This tower is essentially all that's left of the original, ancient castle.

The main house.

The details on that tower are, of course, nutty and spectacular.

At the tower's base are two mosaic-covered benches, the colors and patterns of which reflect the rise and fall of the fortunes of all of the families who lived here, from the 15th century on. Here, the cooler colors representing the fading of the families' influence and prosperity. (The symbolism in these is quite elaborate.)

A very asymmetrical exterior, with crazy balconies here and there.

The only part of this place that looks remotely conventional.

Inside the entry hall.

That ceiling...!

One of the upper rooms.

The unfinished attic.

On the exterior, the windows of the attic are positioned to look like a dragon's face. From two different angles. And it's hidden until you're standing right in front of it on the roof. (There's no way to get a good shot of this unless you have a super wide-angle lens. I don't, so this is what you get. Apologies.)

  

Just down the hill from Torre Bellesguard is a Gaudi-designed viaduct acting as a containment wall.

Because we were up there already, and it was only a 10-minute walk away, we decided to check out the massive Cosmo Caixa science museum. Even without kids, that place is awesome.

For starters, they have a real triceratops head!! (Obviously there's no scale here, but trust me when I say that thing is massive massive massive.)

Downstairs they have all sorts of interactive machines demonstrating various scientific principles; I could have watched this Gaussian distribution machine all day. (I kinda want one for my house.)

They also had various exhibits of living things, large and small; here, a stick bug not quite an inch long.

And a mud skipper! I heart these things.

And a capybara! I can't even. 

And this guy! (HA, HA, I love his buggy eyes and silly hair.)

They had a lot of really good fossils, too. This one's a fish eating another fish, ca. 33-24 million years ago.

And a small, but impressive, collection of minerals. (With which I've been obsessed for as long as I can remember.) (These are lovely, pale, minty-green selenite crystals from Australia.)

Another thing I need for my house: a tornado machine.

Sorta randomly, they also had a collection of various writing styles from around the world, from various eras. This amazing thing contains Tamil script from 1721.

This is 18th-century Tibetan writing.

A few of their written texts displayed stretched to their full lengths. That one in the back is over 3 stories high.

After the museum, we headed back into town, where we ran into the absolutely massive "No Tinc Por" parade and demonstration, which we hadn't known about until that day. On August 17 and 18, a week before we showed up, 15 people were killed and over 100 were injured in two terrorist attacks in downtown Barcelona and nearby Cambrils; as a response, on August 26, half a million people took to the streets to shout, in both Spanish and Catalan, "We are not afraid," and to speak out against Islamophobic backlash, with thousands more cheering along the parade route and handing out flowers. I'm not going to lie, I may have shed a tear or two; to witness such large-scale support for peace, diversity and tolerance (and defiance of intolerance) was powerful.

There were people, flags, and signs as far as we could see in either direction along the Passeig de Gracia.

Two memorials for the victims were set up nearby, as well. Marchers laid down their signs there as they passed.**

The next day, we Gaudi-ed it up again; we headed up to Parc Guell for a bit (stop me if you've seen any of these photos before--OH WAIT, you probably have, except that last time we were there in the near-dark)...

...and then back into town to Casa Batllo (where we've also been before, but hey, it's neat).

Casa Amatller, next door.

Staircase that looks like a spine.

Mushroom-shaped sitting area, of course.

Tiling WAY up on the back of the building (6 floors, I think).

The central atrium, 5 stories high.

The rather sculptural attic.

The guy sure liked himself some weirdness on the rooftops...

Honestly, if we'd been able to fit in a visit to Sagrada Familia, we would have seen all the major Gaudi stuff there was to see in Barcelona, in one weekend. (Just so you know, my dear husband was a willing co-conspirator in all of this; no cajoling or threatening was necessary to go visit all of this. He's the best.) 

Dinner on our final night in the city was at Tapeo, a place recommended by our food tour guide, and just wow. The place is right in the heart of a rather touristy area, but it's small, reservations are a must, and the most-fun seats--as can be expected--are at the bar. We started with the traditional bread-and-tomato (this time, with lovely toasted homemade bread!), asparagus tempura with romesco sauce, and the best bombeta (kinda like a mashed potato ball with meat and sauce in the middle, breaded and fried and topped with a spicy tomato sauce and aioli). The next round brought thin, rare skirt steak with chimichurri sauce; fried anchovies with lemon (yummmm); oxtail with white Santa Pao beans; grilled octopus with chickpeas; and some burrata. And then we finished with a cheese plate, as one does in Europe.*** It was really excellent, especially when washed down with a little sangria (of course we tried both the white and the red).

The next morning, Mike flew off to the US, as he generally does when we go to Barcelona, and I headed home to Zürich. Man, but I like that city, even when it's August and humid and hot and full of people. Still great.

Well, I'd planned for this post to be a rather abbreviated one, but since that apparently never happens, I'll leave you here. With this.

A hope for all times, all people, and all places. Barcelona, you're in our hearts.

*Yeah, yeah, Mexican food in Spain, I know. But we couldn't get into Nino Viejo, our favorite of the genre, so we decided to try somewhere else. It was good, certainly, but not as good.

**Not even three months later, over 900 Catalans were injured when Spanish police cracked down violently on protests and voting sites during a non-binding referendum regarding Catalan independence. They still don't have it; their president is essentially in exile in Belgium, and 45,000 people protested there this week in favor of independence, for which there's really only a very slim hope. The mettle of the Catalan people, however, is extraordinary. I admire them to no end.

***Actually, the burrata was from our neighbor at the bar, a very friendly girl traveling for business, and so dining by herself, and thanks to her willingness to share with us, we were able to order the anchovies, octopus, and oxtail without wasting anything. I know it's weird to share food with someone you don't know, but she seemed enthusiastic, and we really wanted to try more than we could possibly eat by ourselves, so it worked out perfectly.