Satellite
  • Day 43

    Last day in Barcelona

    November 14, 2018 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    When Robyn was here with Carmen and Pete around 7 years ago, she went to a shop that sold home and kitchenware, much of which was local content, and she wanted to find it again to buy a few things for home. It was in the travel guide, but not on the web, and when we arrived at the address we found it was no longer there. However, nearby was another fantastic archeological museum, El Born CCM, or Centrede Cultura Memoria. El Born was a market, built on an earlier part of the city, dating from the 1600s. The current building was erected in the late 1800s and nearly pulled down in the 1970s and replaced with a library. However, when they started excavations they found a wonderfully preserved section of the earlier town, and good sense prevailed. The building now provides shelter to the diggings which have been well presented to visitors. The funny part of it all was that the remains from around 1700 look quite similar to the Roman ruins of 2000 years ago.

    Before the El Born museum we called in to see the Arc de Triomf, erected to welcome visitors to the 1888 Exhibition. The Arch and the avenue that led from it down towards the sea were quite something to see. The street lights there were works of art, and the whole thing was very stylish. There were quite a few tourists there of course, and it was here that we decided to do our “tourist shopping” for things to take home.

    Our map showed a huge space called Mercat De La Barcelona and we thought that it might be a market, to make up for what we had not found earlier. While we found the space there was not a proper market there. Instead we found dozens of people trying to sell the usual tacky stuff - sunglasses, handbags, Gucci T-shirts, Rolex watches etc. It is really quite sad to see so many people trying to make a living in such a demoralising way and we wondered about the social security system in this country. Many of them may well have been illegal immigrants and outside the social security system but we will never know.

    After sitting on the beach for a while, watching a windsurfer and a few peddlers, La Rambla beckoned to Robyn again, this time to see what it was like earlier in the day, and to (perhaps) do a little shopping. We walked along for a while until we came to Mercat St Josef La Boqueria, a huge food market. For produce it outdid Madrid but had less opportunity to eat and drink. Even though it was not quite wine o’clock we stopped for a while and had a local wine, after walking up and down most of the rows. If we were staying in Barcelona again, hopefully for more than three days, we would shop there every day and cook at home, using the wonderful local produce.

    Robyn did find a pair of trousers and a bowl, so shopping is now done and dusted.

    To finish our time in Barcelona we went to a rather nice restaurant just a few blocks away from our apartment. We enjoyed goats cheese with quince and raspberry, caramelised artichoke, oven baked capsicum and tomato rubbed into toast, followed by dessert. It was such a nice way to end our holiday.
    Read more