Scenes for Spain: meals and memories
Somehow today was Sunday already and Barrett and I left the hotel for a day of moveable feasts and adventures. Our first goal was to find quality croissants. We found a little place by our hotel with lovely pain au chocolat. There is a highly emotional debate amongst croissant connoisseurs about the differences between a pain au chocolat and a chocolatine. I will spare you the details, as Spain’s take on croissants is more the former, and I must keep my readers wanting more. We noshed on our chocolate croissants and sipped our espressos as we walked towards the University of Barcelona and to further explore the El Born district. While many businesses are closed on Sundays, the Carrers and Placas are alive with markets selling spices, artisanal jams, crafts, and handmade art.
There were a variety of free art classes in these markets as well, each one offering a different form from sketching to painting to pottery. As with so many places in Europe, the city itself is a work of art from the architecture to the eclectic street art covering street corners and the steel grates hiding closed businesses, yet art is also as an integral component of living as essential as eating, breathing, sleeping, or making love.
As we walked closer to the beach, we wandered into a large building I had hoped was a food market. It was the Cultural Center and inside were excavated ruins of a 16th century fortress. The building had been constructed around the ruins to preserve the history of a lost battle. There were rooms around the perimeter with beautiful relics one could peruse for an entry fee. However, our stomachs were calling and in answer we walked back through the Placa and into a vibrant Peruvian Cafe called Sweet Lima. We ordered a caprese sandwich on focaccia which was then grilled on a panini press until the morsels of mozzarella were steamy and stringy and the pesto creamy. The sweet counter was filled with decadent cakes, fudgy brownies, and large cookies in a variety of flavors, so I bookmarked Sweet Lima for a return later in the week.
Our moveable feast continued back through the art markets and into the Basilica Santa Maria Del Mar. One moment you’re outside an Espadrille shop and the next, you’ve stumbled inside a gorgeous stone masterpiece hand bricked between 1329 and 1384, the last surviving church in the Pure Catalan Gothic Style. Stone pillars reach from the marble floors into vaulted ceilings that seem to stretch well into the heavens, medieval arches and buttresses defying gravity and World Wars standing as a testament of another time when merchants and sailors would seek refuge in the Basilica to pray for safe voyages. If you manage to tear your eyes away from the vastness of the ceiling, The Window of Ascension and The Great Rose Window are two stained glass features of this impressive church that will take your breath. I had the privilege of standing in the middle of the basilica in the afternoon so I could see the sun prism through the majestic glass inlay the warmth of the sunshine casting a rose colored glow over the rows of wood pews, not to mention my fragile, grief stricken heart.
In a daze of beauty and wonder, we stepped out of the church and wandered back through the city into the Placa Reial, a beautiful piazza lined with restaurants and filled with music of street performers vying for attention and money from tourists. Above the restaurants are hotels and apartments, wrought iron balconies line the perimeter of each floor and for a moment, as I stand in the middle of the pizza, Picasso’s pigeons twittering above and around me, I can see myself leaning over one of those balconies soaking in a different version of life and myself, a version of myself I hope to know one day.
“Let’s order a Spritz,” I say to Barrett, and within minutes we are seated at a table in the Placa, two Aperol Spritzes appear and a bowl of marinated olives. The World Cup is playing behind us, and as I begin to people watch I realize everyone around me is either wearing a tracksuit or taking photos of themself for their Instagram. A street performer was singing an American pop song to an American tourist, and luckily, before long, my best friend Pierre texts that their plane has landed.
Barrett ordered a welcome board of Iberico and cheese and a bottle of wine to greet Pierre and Bastien in our hotel lobby. I was wearing my new t-shirt Barrett had bought me earlier today in El Born, featuring two skeletons holding hands, a heart of burgundy roses between them and beneath the couple read: La Bonita Vita. I loved this shirt, because it reminded me of our wedding invitations and our love affair: all that is promised is until death do us part. Everything afterwards is just a hope and a dream.
To be honest, I was very nervous to see Pierre. I haven’t seen him since the summer and that was before my father died. I feel like a shell of who I used to be, all of my personality stripped away until only this raw skeleton remains. However, as soon as I saw him, it was like we had never been apart. Also, he had presents for us. For Barrett he bought him a book called, Does It Fart? And for me a Downton Abbey Tea book full of recipes and afternoon tea inspiration. Pierre always chooses just the right book to buy me, and he inscribes a lovely message inside, so you can always remember when and where you were when you received the gift. As a bonus, he gave me a Christmas card with a pair of Jingle Balls on the front and a David Bowie bookmark inside.
See my Ultimate Guide to Eating with no regrets in Barcelona!
For dinner we went to a Mediterranean restaurant called Sumac and Mambo. We ordered Pierre’s favorite Spanish wine, Priorat. It quickly became my favorite as well, and we continued to order Priorat at dinner for the duration of the trip. We began our meal with the mezze platter and told the waiter to keep the naan and Barberi coming until we asked him to stop. Pierre ordered the fish, Bastien and Barrett the lamb chop, and I ordered the Kubideh, my favorite. It was served on a grilled naan, alongside charred baby peppers and ripe, bursting tomatoes grilled on the vine, a cilantro chutney was drizzled lovingly over the top. For dessert we ordered saffron and pistachio ice cream sprinkled with crushed rose petals and a grilled pineapple.
During dinner my son called me to tell me he missed me and to ask me for the fortieth time if he could buy a Katana. The answer, of course, still being no. I loved hearing from my son during our nights out. Not only did I miss the King of Heart so much it physically hurt some days, but it’s a lovely dose of reality and humility. Without it, I may have been swept up in the never ending tide of handsome men, tapas, bottles of wine that appear as if from nowhere, and magical palaces always just a few steps down the road.
Speaking of which, on our walk home, we happened upon an adorable little bar called Hemingway’s. Tiny and unassuming, Hemingway's boasts room for a maximum of twenty people at a time, and a craft cocktail list comprised of the namesake’s favorites like his classic Hemingway Daiquiri or a Negroni with house made Vermouth.
Photographs of the legend line the back wall of the bar. The bar stools were a deep green and the bar a manly mahogany. In typical Hemingway fashion, cubans were sold behind the bar. For our first stop in I ordered the Daiquiri, Barrett the Old Fashioned, Pierre and Bastien Game of Thrones themed drinks. Our night cap was a storybook ending to a magical first day, all four of us reunited for the second time this year, our glasses clinking in unison. Cheers to a week of adventures with Las Putas de Barcelona.
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