Monday, November 5, 2007

Spanish Vacation: Day Twelve

Day Twelve begins....

Ah, our vacation is winding down and the end is near. The only planned events we have remaining are two dinners. We have the rest of the days to ourselves, free to wander Barcelona and explore this wonderful city. It is a large city and there is so much to see that we will only be able to view a fraction of it. But, we will sure do a lot of walking in the next couple days.
We first returned to the Mercat de la Boqueria, where we had made a brief stop before. We wanted more time to explore the market, to examine all it had to offer. We passed down about every row and aisle in the market. It is just amazing how much can be found here. It is also so very clean.Just look at all the choices offered at the egg stall. You can buy any number of eggs rather than just the dozen packages we see in our stores.

You can buy entire suckling pigs. Don't they look like they are sleeping? And if you don't want the whole pig, you can buy any of its body parts and organs, as in the picture below.
And if you don't like pork, there are organ meats from other animals as well.
Or check these organs below. In the bottom right corner there is a tray of criadillas, bull testicles. Andrew Zimmerman of Bizarre Foods might be able to eat them but I certainly was not even going to try them.

After leaving the Boqueria, we wandered down Las Ramblas almost to the shore. At the end of Las Ramblas, there is a statue of Christopher Columbus. Below, you can see a silhouette of that statue.
This is a popular Church for mariners, who often pray here before going out on a sea journey. Just across from this Church, you will see a statue of Poseiden, which you can view below.
We wandering for a time through the Barri Gotic and Born districts, a kind of random meandering. There were plenty of interesting architectural finds, such as below.

There were also intriguing stores, such as a magic and costume show with the intriguing entrance below. On route, we did stop at a place for Churros. They were delicious, hot, cripsy and with a light covering of sugar. We also saw a Dali museum. Though we did not go into the actual museum, we did wander into the courtyard and see a couple of the statues there.

For lunch, we just stopped by Txapela, a Basque pintxos tavern on the Passeig de Gracia. We just had a few Tapas and a couple glasses of wine. The food was ok though nothing special. But we knew dinner should be special so we did not want to fill up too much for lunch.

We were certainly tired by the afternoon as we walked so much. So, we spent a time relaxing in our hotel before dinner.

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