Staying in Barcelona's Avenue of Luxury

This is going to sound dumb, coming from someone who lived 14 months in Madrid in the sixties, but I was not fascinated by Barcelona until I heard The Alan Parsons Project's Gaudi in 1987.  Ever since then I have been trying to convince Mary to spend some time in Catalonia and we finally did so in late 2014.  In luxury.  When we travel we are usually a thrifty couple, staying in guesthouses or affordable hotels.  For this trip we splurged on a very nice hotel, Casa Fuster, on the Paseo de Gracia.  Here we are on the rooftop bar, with Barcelona's Avenue of Luxury stretching behind Mary all the way to the Mediterranean Sea.

From the top of the Passeig de Gràcia (that's in Catalan) you can hike, or use the excellent public transportation, to all of these Gaudi masterpieces:  Casa Milà (a.k.a. La Pedrera), Casa Batlló, and La Sagrada Familia. 

Those magnificent structures are impressive. Pro Tip: get tickets online in order to skip the lengthy lines if you want to go inside.  But you can enjoy Barcelona by simply walking around, joining the mass of humanity strolling La Rambla, getting lost in the "Old Town" and finding other Cathedrals.  Or going to parks outside of the central city and running into a Dragon Gate or a monastery almost a century old.

We did not rent a car in Barcelona.  The subway and the "Hop-On/Hop-Off" buses more than sufficed.  We did take two trips outside of Barcelona.  One was to a small castle for a very personalized wine tour -- since there were only six of us in the minivan -- arranged by our hotel's concierge.  The other trip is highly recommended: go to one of the many travel agencies and take a modern bus 45km north of the city to Montserrat.  Just do it.  Many thanks to my cousin Teri Mari for that suggestion.

The last set of photos are from Park Güell, a fantasy land of a park, designed by Gaudi, that looks down upon the city.  Warning: the climb to the park is very steep.  One of the alleys leading to it has several escalators (and not all of them were working).  The buses and the subway stop at the very bottom of the hill -- you must be prepared to hike.  The hike is well worth it.  Once you are inside you will feel like you are in a Theodor Geisel book with all of the bright colors and odd shapes.

With all of the hiking we did every day it was nice to get back to a luxury hotel to rest.  Then we would go out again to find a restaurant (or bring some food back to our room) and then stroll  the Paseo de Gracia at night.  Barcelonians dine very late in evening.  One time we were the only diners enjoying a paella on the sidewalk as everyone else was still getting home from work, sometimes with their children in tow, after 7 PM.  If you don't want to eat alone in a restaurant in Barcelona plan on getting there after 9 PM.

We only spent 8 days in Barcelona.  We would have liked to stay longer.  We only visited one museum in a metropolis full of them: The Picasso Museum in the older part of town.  It was superb.  We thought we might do more indoor attractions, but as you can see from the photos, the November weather in Spain had no rain falling on the plain.  The locals were very friendly and we felt welcome everywhere we went (it helped that I know español).  So it was a tad alarming to see this graffiti as we climbed down the hill from Park Güell after another fantastic day in Barcelona: