Thinking about traveling?
Barcelona sounds fine to me! And if you need a Realtor® anywhere in the world, I can help! Please
keep me in mind and also click-thru to my website below to look at some
more of my favorite destinations, whether for vacation or investment.
Barcelona's Barri Gotic--the Gothic Quarter.
Do This When You're in Barcelona
International Living Postcards--your daily escape
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Buenos días, guapa
(morning, lovely one) calls Juanito at Bar Pinotxo in the Boqueria food
market. This is where I've had a breakfast of fresh clam omelet and a
glass of cava every Saturday morning since I moved to Barcelona, Spain, eight years ago.
The
colorful La Rambla may be the city's most exotic urban sight, but I
tend to skip it in favor of the medieval streets and peaceful plaças of
the Gothic Quarter.
Tucked down the end of narrow alleyways,
these pint-sized town squares (that feel like villages) each have their
own personality. I go to Plaça Sant Felíp Neri to visit the shoe museum
and absorb the quiet. Shrapnel marks pock a wall in a school where a
bomb fell during the Spanish civil war, yet it exudes peace.
I
call in to visit the resident geese in the cloisters of the
cathedral--locals believe them to be lucky--and make a quick wish (you
never know). Then on to the stone courtyard of the Museu Frederic Marès. The crowds of the cathedral dissolve away like magic, and you're left in the shade of an orange tree sipping a perfectly made cortado (espresso with a shot of hot milk).
Weaving
back through the dark, heavy stone of the Palau Reial (the royal palace
of the Catholic Kings) I marvel at the Corinthian Columns still
standing tall and proud at the ancient Roman Temple of Augustus.
Across Plaça Sant Jaume (Barcelona's
equivalent of Parliament) I go, past the Formatgeria La Seu on
C/Dagueria--my favorite cheese shop on earth--to the Plaça Sant Just.
Here, at the church with the red door, if you believe your life to be
in mortal danger you can still make a legally binding will at the
altar, before popping into the fabulous Cafè de la Acadèmia for lunch.
Written by Tara Stevens For International Living