Degustación de Tapas - Part 5

Sightseeing in Barcelona, Spain continues....

The third day of my holiday was the most exciting. In the late afternoon, I had to be at a specific location, but before that...there was time to explore a little more of this beautiful city!

The weather was sunny, so we headed out to the beach. Did you know Barcelona has 4 beaches all within 10 minutes of the city center? To travel to the waterfront, we tried the city metro for the first time. Being a train fan, of course I sneaked some photos of the subway... ^_^

Inside the city metro:

Train doors opened... 

...and closed. This was interesting for me: in Spain the train doors have a green button that you have to push to open them. In Japan, the doors are all automatic, so I was quite surprised you have to open the carriage doors manually!

After a short ride, we arrived at the station Villa Olympica, closest stop to the beaches area.

I am here.

The beaches and waterfront were better than I had imagined. According to the guide book, this space was developed for the 1992 Summer Olympics. Before that time, Barcelona residents didn't care much for the waterfront. The Olympics changed their attitudes completely. And no wonder! A long boardwalk, perfect for strolling, running, even rollerblading snaked along the beach. It was a slice of heaven for city residents.

Beach on the left, boardwalk on the right.
The building in the distance is the new W hotel. 

If you add me to the photo above, you'll get this... (laugh) 

Water + cutenekko =  big smiles ^_^

My friend and I continued to walk along Icaria beach and headed over to the wharf. Here, we were told by the hostal owner, were lots of great restaurants. We came to enjoy a famous Spanish dish paella, and I wanted to try the fruity red wine called sangria.

From the boardwalk down to the wharf area, near Icaria beach. 
The large fish monument in the center was created for the Olympics. 

After looking at all the choices, we found one restaurant which opened early just for us. I loved our table!

Cutenekko says "meow!" 
(translation: Holy sheep...I'm next to the Spanish Mediterranean! WOO!) 

Notice the bowl of olives on the table? 

My sangria. 

I don't drink alcohol, so I just asked for one glass. Sangria is usually served in 500 ml or 1L decanters.

How was the taste? It was alright, but quite watered down. I ended up drinking a much better sangria later in the trip. I'll share that in a future blog post. 

The paella
This is a rice based dish with shrimp, clams, squid and octopus. It is baked in the oven and served very hot.

This one was a bit disappointing actually...it was very dry. 

By the time we finished eating, we had to hurry off to our appointment and what would be the real reason for our traveling so far from Japan. I'm excited to share that tomorrow. ^_^

The Barcelona tourist site has great information on the different city beaches. Click HERE to read more. 

You can make paella at home. Here is a recipe. For historical information about this dish, visit the WIKI page HERE. At a restaurant, paella is not cheap. Prices start at 12 Euros. 

The restaurant staff were kind, but very slow regarding service. Also, the food wasn't quite as good as we were promised. We both agreed, you really pay for the view, so I can't recommend this restaurant in Barcelona. I'll share the best restaurant I experienced in a later post.