Ahh, the pleasure of sleeping late. For probably the first time since my early teens, I slept in until 10:30 today. The bedroom in our B&B has no windows, so it was easy to pretend it was still early. Guilt, however, finally got the better of us, and we rolled out of bed.
Today’s agenda was pretty simple. Get cleaned up. Get something to eat. (This area is littered with patisseries.) Walk to and through the Museo Picasso. Walk to the sea, then walk back along the Rambla, stopping somewhere to get lunch (and gelato). And that’s basically what we did.
On our way south toward the Mediterranean, we stopped at a cute little French-looking patisserie called El Fornet where I ate a large palmier and mark ate a sandwich and a pear tart. I was pleased to be able to make myself understood in Spanish (though I didn’t need to). I pointed and said “Ese, por favor.” I also managed to get out “Te con leche y asugar.” (Tea with milk and sugar.)
We walked along, just sightseeing and admiring the architecture until we reached the Arc del Triomf and then through the park it heads..
We spent a lot of time looking for the Museo Picasso because it’s in the old city, and on the map we have, the location is wrong. It’s not too far off, but it’s off enough to throw us. We got close a couple times, and we knew we were circling it, more or less, but eluded us for probably a half hour. We finally found directional signage on the street that pointed us in the right direction. Here’s what a typical street in the old city looks like.
It’s about eight or ten feet wide.
We spent about an hour in the Museo Picasso. I can’t say I love his work—and a lot of it is much darker than I imagined or remembered—but I respect it. What was especially interesting about this museum, though, is the number of studies and versions of famous works on display. (Thanks for the heads up, Jan!) I knew artists generally do studies of their works if they’re not painting en plein air, but I didn’t know that Picasso made many, many small studies of the figures in his Las Meninas, and it was fascinating to see the evolution of the painting.
I thought about buying a change purse with one of his pen-and-ink drawings of Don Quixote on it—my new car doesn’t have a good place to keep loose change—but I discovered that what I thought was a change purse is actually a large bag that collapses down to change-purse size, so I didn’t buy it. When we come back after the cruise, I may pop over to buy one or two small things that I thought were neat.
We ate lunch outside in the old city in a lovely plaza at a restaurant called Morelia. I had a hamburger. Mark had a bowl of pomme frites with a fried egg and ham on top. After lunch, we walked down to the waterfront, over to La Rambla (THE major shopping and culture street in Barcelona) where we had gelato and then back to the B&B. We had such good (and late) lunches that we decided to skip dinner and just stay in tonight. Tomorrow, we board the Norwegian Epic, and Monday is a day at sea. I may not have much to post about until our first shore excursion on Tuesday, but I’ll try to post something.