Adios Dan y Barca

Sunday morning we got out of bed early - around 11am, as Dan had checked out of his abode and was knocking on our door. Feeling rather fresh, the three amigos set back out into the streets of Barcelona, and in search for some breakfast came across a tapas bar that served pintxos -  tapas served on bread secured with a toothpick, all displayed out the front of the bar. You just bring a plate, take what you want, and when you're done they count your toothpicks and give you la cuenta!

Dan's got a mouth full and Ryan cannot take his eyes off the meat cone

Just around the corner from there, we stumbled upon a jamon shop full of all different forms of Ryan's favourite meat. Much to his and Dan's delight they were serving cones jam(on)-packed with little off-cuts which we bought and snacked on as we wound our way through the Gothic quarter down to Barcelonetta beach again (Dan was going back to London that evening so needed to maximise beach time). Being a weekend it was pretty crowded, but we found a spot at the cafe where we had hung the day before. The boys went for a dip in the sea and then afterwards we indulged in many glasses of cava as we watched the beautiful people walk by on what was a perfect day.

The lady at the table next to us offered to take this photo after Dan spilled cava on her. Yay Dan.

Cutting it perhaps a little fine, we then got a cab back to our hotel so Dan could get his bag and high-tail it to the airport for his flight back to cold old London. Meanwhile Ryan and I headed to an area (El Raval) near our hotel we hadn't been before and wandered around before stopping for some tapas for dinner followed by some cava and some pretty yummy buffalo wings at Marmalade, a nearby cocktail bar. That night we were in bed by 11pm. Unheard of in Espana.

View from Parc Guell showing the sheer enormity of La Sagrada Familia (and they are building it higher)

The next morning we had to check out of our hotel, although since we were catching the overnight ferry to Mallorca, we went and dumped our bags off in the car we'd parked a couple of suburbs away and got some average breakfast nearby. A running joke we've had on this trip is about the service - we call a lot of European waiters and waitresses honey badgers, because they just don't give a shit. You will be served when they are good and ready.

Gaudi's Parc Guell

Anyway honey badgers aside, we then went and got the metro and walked up some steep hills/stairs up to Gaudi's massive Parc Guell. Crawling with people, the views up the top over all of Barcelona are mind-blowing. Not to mention there are a number of buildings designed by Gaudi. Although overcast it was pretty hot by the stage so we headed back to the centre of town near Passeig de Gracia, and saw another famous Gaudi building, Casa Batlo. This happened to be right next door to the Barclays head office which had about 20 people who had stationed themselves outside (protesting about some corrupt share deal which the bank is involved in) blowing whistles and horns and generally creating havoc, which was actually pretty interesting to see it all in action having read about it on the other side of the world.

Panoramic view from Parc Guell

I had read about a pretty cool tapas bar in the area called Tapas 24, and sure enough once we found it there was a line out the door. Apart from Tickets obviously, none of the tapas in Barcelona had really blown me away, so I voted that we stick it out in the line for at least a bit. It paid off and we were seated within 20 or so minutes. This place, being written up in Time Out, obviously had a lot of tourists, but the staff were really friendly and helpful and the food top notch, the highlight for me being the toasted ham/cheese sandwich (although this was iberico jamon, buffalo mozzarella topped with black truffle!) and for Ryan the McFoie burger - a mini burger served with quite a large size of foie gras. Win!

The "Bikini" - iberico jamon, buffalo mozzarella and black truffle. Best toasted sandwich ever.

After lunch we wandered the streets, all through the Gothic quarter which is definitely my favourite part, down to the beach again, and then went and got our car to be at the port in plenty of time to get on the overnight ferry. Lucky we did because  the location of the ticket office was as clear as mud, so after asking numbers of people and driving into areas we weren't meant to, we eventually got our tickets and found the right spot. For some reason, only Ryan was allowed to be in the car to drive it on the ferry - I had to go on a bus to drive the 20 metres from the wharf onto the ferry. When I said to Ryan, "But where will I meet you?" he said "On the bow of the top deck". Then I said "Where's the bow?".

It turned out when I walked onto the boat I found Ryan in the bar.