Barcelona
Rambling the Ramblas
Found our way more successfully to Girona Metro station and realized best
exit to get to La Boqueria Market would be Jaume.
Got out there and headed to Las Ramblas. Stopped at Costa Coffee and drank
coffee with a view to an attractive walled Plaza, with palace guards watching
several entrances to the “Placa Sant Jaume”. These Catalonian words make me
feel dyslexic. All my years of high school Spanish and what does it get
me—tongue-tied when reading signs in Barcelona! From the plaza we walked to La
Boqueria, a visually rich marketplace with incredible seafood, meats, cheeses
and produce. Tourists bustle about. From there we navigated to Villa Vina wine
shop, across from a gourmet cheese shop. Reed wanted to get cheese for our long
train journey to Santiago de Compostela. Yes, we would do our Camino without
moving our feet, sitting in a train car, crossing the width of Spain, east to
west, in a single day. We didn’t buy cheese immediately but instead headed to a
Ramblas restaurant/tapas bar called El Xampanet recommended to us by Larkin and
Leonard back in Texas.
El Xampanet proved to be a fun experience. During
our trek across the tiny streets of Ramblas neighborhood we came upon a group
of Northern European girls in revealing bathing suits barely covered by gauzy
material over-frocks. They were fun to follow on our journey. Something sexy
about a curvy woman, or women, walking down the street in a barely concealed
bikini. We had no problem picking up the step count to keep pace with them. At
Xampanet we arrived 11:45 and waited for the steel sliding cover of the
storefront to be lifted. A slender, wiry Asian looking guy entered and exited
the half-open steel door. Turned out he was Achilles, as we later learned, our
entertaining, fast-talking, wisecracking waiter. We waited at the front with
four German girls. They later sat next to use in the compressed quarters of
Xampanyet to celebrate a 24th birthday party, starting with a
champagne toast. Turns our Xampanyet means—little champagne.
We ordered:
·
pulpo
·
calamares
·
garbanzo beans & veg
·
omelet w/ potato, chorizo
·
house made beer
·
tomato bread & olive oil
·
olives
Achilles kept us laughing and when rewarded by us
with a 3 euro tip by clanging the bell up by the bar. Very clever Pavlovian
method employed to keep the tourists happily forking over money.
We finished the sojourn with a visit back to the
gourmet chesses store—and ultra-clean and well-stocked place. Reed bought fancy
Catalan goat and sheep cheeses for our trip westward across Spain to Santiago
de Compostela.
Travel Day-- 6/17/17
No comments:
Post a Comment