Spain 2005

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Here I am, going off to work on Bastille Day. Vive la France!

Sant Sadurní d’Anoia

There are some photos down below of Sant Sadurní d’Anoia. That is where they make most of the Cava (sparkling wine) in Spain. We had visited the Catalonian Tourist Bureau earlier in the week, and learned about what train to take to get to the town. It seemed easy…

But then we got to the Plaza Catalunya Metro station, and it was all a little less clear. It seems as though there are TWO train companies that leave from this station and take you to Sant Sadurni ‘ Anoia. Who knew? We, of course, bought tickets for the wrong one. Not that big a deal, but it did mean that we missed the train we had hoped to catch. Another one left about ½ hour later, and thought it seemed a close run thing, we caught that one.

The landscape around Barcelona is not particularly attractive. So we sat an chatted as the train made its slow and laborious way through the industrial suburbs of the city and the dry landscape just outside of town. Steel mills? In Spain? Who knew? My guess is that they are being subsidized by the EU. Good for Spain, bad for the EU.

We finally made it to town, and got out in the rather desolate train station. Freixenet is just across the street from the station, but we opted to walk into town first to find out what the local tourist folks would recommend. But as we were walking over the bridge, we spotted a small Cava producer along the river. We walked over, walked in and there were son folks packaging up some palates of Cava. We asked if we could have a tour, and they told us no.

Undeterred, we walked out and ambled up to the town center. We found the Tourist office, and they were very nice. There was an English language tour starting at Codorniu in about 20 minutes. We called for a taxi and walked outside. Moments later a late model Mercedes Benz shows up and whisks us away to the Bodega abut two miles outside of town.

It was €2 a piece to take the tour. That did include a movie and a tram ride around the cellars, so it didn’t seem too outrageous. There were about ten other folks by he time the tour stared, and we were put in a darkened theater to watch a movie about the history of Codorniu. All this seemed eerily familiar. But we enjoyed the tour none the less. Doreen had her tram ride (She loves carts) and we had several glasses of Codorniu’s finest. They have 15 miles of caves here, which houses 100 million bottles of this stuff. And all quite delicious.

It is cool to see how the machines bottle, cap, disgorge, and label all those bottles. Quite an industry.

Then the tour was over and we had to get back into town. It was HOT, so I caged a ride from a couple of old French guys. Luckily Doreen was charming them with her impeccable French, and I was just sitting there being happy that we didn’t have to walk in that sun!

We ended up back at the tourist center, and we asked for a nice palce to eat. She gave us a couple of options, and we ended up at a small outstanding restaurant called Ticus. I started out with melon and ham, Doreen had a cold zucchini soup. The melon was perfect – cold and sweet, and the Iberian ham wrapped around it was about the best ham in the world. You could taste the nuts upon which the pigs were fed, and all just melted together in a happy mélange in your mouth.

We asked the owner which cava to order with the meal. He recommended one called Solà Raventós. It was made just down the street, which proved propitious, and it was very, very good. Dry and yeasty, a pale yellow with a nice crown. This is what you look for in a small producer. It had a distinctive taste, and you wanted to drink it all day long.

The main course came, and again we wer impressed with the flavors and quality of the meal. I had a pork shank (the waiter pointed at his feet when I asked what part it was. I was worried that I was going to get a trotter, but my Spanish was almost good enough to assure me that I would not) and Doreen had lamb ribs. Oh, gosh they looked good! The pork was, too. A great meal. (The dessert was odd yet again. Not bad, just odd. Kiwi reduction, cream and apples.)

We then wandered over to the Solà Raventós Cava for a tour. It was fun, as we got to their door they were just opening up. I pounded on the door, and then told them we just had a bottle of their wine. They were impressed, and we had a great time. This was the opposite extreme of Codorniu. The owner even said “We don’t have a train”. But he bottled, labeled, and riddled every bit of his cava by hand. He only had 30,000 bottles in his cave, and told us that every bottle gets old locally.

That is a good life.

Gaudi Tiles on the Passage de Gracia

Barcelona Food, Take Two

One of the great things about traveling is running into friends in unplanned new places. It turned out that a couple of friends were going to be in Barcelona at the same time we were. One was there for a tax in the EU conference (sexy!) and the other was tagging along for the fun.

As I had mentioned before, our neighborhood is a “real” neighborhood. We had passed a place almost daily that I was dying to eat at, called “L’Olive”. Doreen was reluctant to eat there, though I am not sure why. (You can check out some reviews here and here) I am sure that she had a good reason. It probably had to do with not subjecting friends to a place we never ate at, that I want to try merely on a hunch. Anyway, we talked to John (We met John, John, and Ono. Ono was Dutch) and he was game, so they took the Metro (which is easy and cheap) from their hotel to meet us in our neighborhood.

We walked to the place just as The Boys were getting a bit lost. A quick cell phone conversation and they were in front of the restaurant with us, and we looked at the wonderfully Catalan menu. It passed the test we all had, so we walked in and hoped for a table. It was still early by Spanish standards (about 10:00) and we were able to get a table for five without waiting. That made us all happy, so we traipsed into the place and settled at the table.

We were handed English/Spanish menus (no Catalan) and the waiter disappeared. He disappeared for a LONG time! We thought we had made them upset by being so blatantly not Catalonian. But, he came back eventually, and Ono won him over by asking him t o take a photo of the table (not recreated here because the batteries were dead) and then he took our order.

Doreen and I started with a glass of Cava, nobody else had a drink to start, and we ordered our meals. John had lentil salad for his starter and Grilled Tuna as his main course. John had Wild Green Asparagus for his starter and then Cod & Green Beans for his meal. Ono had Catalan Cannelloni and a Veal Steak. Doreen started with the (tame) White Asparagus, then had Cod and Ratatouille. I started with Tuna with Onions and Tomatoes, and then had the Lubino (Sea Bass) for my main course. We ordered one bottle of red wine (a Raimat Abadia) and one white (Gran Feudo from Julian Chivite)

The waiter recommended a specialty of the restaurant, and a local specialty, which is Bread with Olive Oil, Garlic, and Tomatoes. Now, it sounds like you can’t go wrong with that no matter what you do, but some of the places we have tried this it was nothing more than a pink smear on a dry crust of bread. Here, it was succulent. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Imagine rich, crusty bread, generously covered with chopped, ripe, home grown tomatoes, hand crushed garlic cloves, and first cold pressed olive oil from 1,000 year old trees. Now you’re cookin’! It was great. Even if the rest of the meal was cardboard, I would have been happy.

But, of course, the rest of the meal wasn’t cardboard. My tuna, though it looked like it was out of a can, was fresh and tender. The onions sharp and firm, the tomatoes as good as the ones smeared on the bread mentioned above. I didn’t have a bit of Doreen’s asparagus, but she assured me it was wonderful with some of that olive oil and mayonnaise. The other starters looked equally delicious. The most intriguing was the Catalonian Cannelloni. It was covered with cheesy goodness, and looked wonderful. And, of course, how can you possibly go wrong with wild asparagus or a pile of lentils?

The true payoff came with my main course, however. This fish, this Lubina, came strat from Catalonian heaven. Firm, flavorful, rich, and tender. Oh! What a Fish! I could have eaten it all day. Coupled with that nice white Catalonian wine – crisp and dry, grassy with nice acids biting you back, it was about perfect. Doreen’s cod was memorable mainly for the Ratatouille, and the rest of the meals looked good as well.

Our deserts, as with most of our deserts in Spain, were uneventful.

We stumbled home some hours later, and just reflected on how much fun it is to see people you know out of the usual context in which you see them.

Another big Cava maker. Pronouced "Fresh-Net" (x=sh in catalan)

This is a fountain of Mercury, designed by Miro for the 1937 Spanish Pavillion at the World's Fair in Paris. It was to commemerate the destruction of the city of Almaden in the Spanish Civil War. Click here for a video

Less is More

Antoni T�pies, Homenatge a Picasso

Self Portrait with Sacred Goose

This was pretty much our life in Barcelona - Cava and Vichy Catalan water

The Arcade at the Plaza Real in Barcelona. That will mean something to you if you have read the book _The Shadow of the Wind_

One of the Sacred Geese at the cathedral in Barcelona. I don't know why they have Sacred Geese, but they do. Maybe for Christmas Dinner.

The Celler Master and some of his 30,000 bottles of Sola Raventos, a tiny Cava maker in St Sadurni d'Anioa. This wine was GREAT! But unavailable outside of this tiny city. He said that his friends tell him he can never retire.

Pallets and Pallets of Codorniu Cava. They have 100,000,000 bottles in 15 miles of Caves!

Barcelona Food, Take One

Barcelona Food

There are two things that I will always remember about Barcelona. The food, and walking for miles and miles looking at amazing and interesting architecture.

Let’s start with the food.

I mentioned in my last posting about eating Basque food, and food at a little café down the street from our apartment. In both cases, these were places that the locals eat. Not the “microwaved paella” that you read about being laid down on The Ramblas. The food was solid, tasty, and enjoyable. If you can point, you can order food in these places. My Spanish is fine, but please don’t ask me to describe a “Lubina” or how to translate “pig trotter” from a menu description. But I can walk to a counter and see the food sitting there and say “Quiro Este” and get what I want. These places offered that sort of food.

The first fancy place we ate we came across after visiting Gaudi’s Church of the Sagrada Familia. (See pictures below). The place was called Castell de Xàtiva and was on a side street not too close to the church, so we figured that there would not be too many tourists there. We were right. Not only were there not too many tourists there, there was NOBODY there. It was about 1:15, and the sign said that they opened at 1:00. We walked in, asked if they were open for lunch, and they said Sure – just wait five minutes.

They set us up a table, and then asked if we wanted menus in English. Because of the “lubina” problem mentioned above, I said one of each. This is a good way to learn your foods (lubina, by the way, is sea bass.) The staff seemed a bit put out that we showed up so early for lunch (this was a Sunday) but was friendly enough (and got much friendlier as the meal went on). We looked at the menu, and opted for the “Daily Special” (which is something that every Spanish restaurant is required to offer by law) which included an appetizer, a main course, and a desert. Both of us selected the Fried Sardines as the appetizer. We split our main courses – a Black Rice (think of it as paella with squid ink) Seafood dish and a Fideo (fried vermicelli) seafood plate. I can’t recall what we had for desert – I think I had ice cream and Doreen had a spiced orange. The wine we had was a good Catalonian white called Canal y Nubliado.

The sardines were great – and quite large. They were gently fried, fresh fish about six inches long. They were WHOLE fish – head and all. You had to cut the meat off the bones, but it was quite tasty. The best part of the meal in my opinion. Both the main courses seemed a bit dry, and the vermicelli was crunchy (I assume it was supposed to be crunchy, as it was described as “fried” vermicelli). The black rice was good, but also dry. Both main courses were served with mayonnaise. You saw a lot of mayonnaise in Barcelona. The wine was dry and fruity. Great with the seafood.

While we were eating, Doreen mentioned that she wanted to see the Magic Fountains of Montjuic. I did not know what, or where they are. They only turn them on from Thursday through Sundays in the summer, starting at dusk. We asked the hostess about them, and she tried to show us on our map. She asked us to wait a moment and she disappeared. We ate, enjoyed the meal, and she showed up about 20 minutes later with a printout from the Barcelona Tourist Bureau. It was great! We had a map, a description of the fountains, and a schedule of when they occur. We were quiet impressed that she went to this trouble for us.

We went to the dancing fountains that night, and had a great time. (They are quite complicated fountains, installed for the 1929 Barcelona Exposition. Yes, the same one that introduced the Van Der Rohe Barcelona Chairs. You would be amazed at the complicated color, music, and water patterns that can be created with old analog systems!)

Gaudi's Sagrada Famila Church

I think we saw a bunch of people who were on this tour.

Casa Batllo by Antoni Gaudi. More on him later. This is a real house, and was completed in the early 20th century.

Another view of the Rambla. This give you a better feel how crowded it is.

The Rambla. This is the center, pedestrian part. You barely make out a pet store over to the left of the photo.

Barcelona Arrival

Some photos are posted below, and some will be posted above.

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We left for Barcelona in good time, and caught a cab easily on the Calle Mayor. We scooted to the airport, and got out tickets without a problem. The ticket agent was kind enough to give us an exit row (for my height) and we got to the gate and started to wait.

Gates in airports are pretty much the same all over the world. When you have a lot of frequent flights (as you do between Madrid and Barcelona) you have a lot of turnover in people as you wait. You can watch them and see how they will react to the flights as they come and go. Me, I like to be one of the first ones on the plane. Especially if I have carry-on bags, and especially when the flight is full of people with big carry on bags. For short hop flights, it is not uncommon for people to carry large bags and plenty of them. I have been guilty of this myself.

The flight we were on was going to Athens via Barcelona, so it was an odd combination of international and domestic travelers. The flight to BCN was only about an hour, so we settled in and made the best of it. They gave us KitKat bars (1/2 size) and a glass of water. It was plenty.

We got to the apartment with no problems and dragged our bags into the door. The owner had mailed us the keys so they wouldn’t have to meet us there. That worked out great, except for one small problem. We read the apartment number wrong, and I tried to break into the home of a woman who started yelling at me and saying she was going to call the police. Even after I apologized, and asked her if she may know what the RIGHT apartment was, she gave no quarter. She said that she didn’t know, and didn’t care, and if I didn’t leave IMMEDIATELY, she was going to call the police. She slammed her little window next to her door (through which she has been telling us that she was going to call the police) and we re-read the instructions.

It turned out that we were in the apartment directly below hers, the keys worked fine, and we got in and unpacked. The place is nice, if spare. It is bigger than our place in Madrid, and right in the middle of a real neighborhood.

We decided to go out for lunch (it was about 2:00) and just walked down the street to the first café we could find. It was a nice little place, and we ordered a couple of beers. The waiter was pushing a potato tortilla (what we would call a frittata) real hard. Doreen got that, I and got white beans and sausage. Both meals were good hearty neighborhood meals. Nothing fancy, but very good. My beans came with mayonnaise, and I used it.

After the meal, we too a short nap and walked down the Rambla. This is a LONG LARGE street covered with people. There is a central part where folks walk (ramble) and then the stores along the street. So it is like a very wide boulevard with the central part being pedestrian and selected vendors. Some of the vendors are what you would expect (small cafes, tourist stuff) but others are just strange. Flowers and house plants, and weirder still, pets. Not just any pets, but song birds (I saw cardinals! How sad.) fowl (guinea hens and chickens) and €180 tortoises. Too strange.

The Rambla was packed with people (this was a Saturday night, after all) but we made it all the way down to the port. From there we wandered into the Gothic Quarter, slowly making our way back twisty, narrow streets that smelled of urine.

We finally made it back to our neighborhood (after stopping for a drink, me a beer, Doreen a Cava) and ate Basque food for dinner. We selected by pointing at the food behind the counter, which worked out fine.

Then we went to sleep about 1:00 AM, and slept like the dead until about 10:00 the next morning.

This is a self portrait in front of Gaudi's famous church - The Sacred Family. He is a very strange fellow. I will try to get a representative sample of photographs of his stuff and post them bye and bye.

Now here she is all happy again. I told her that another train would be by in just a few minutes, and there was no need to worry.

Doreen looks sad here because we missed the Metro. Someone was lollygagging, and someone was rushing. I won't say who was doing what. Now, look at my face. Does that look like the face of someone who is being mean? I didn't think so. But someone ELSE in the family wanted to point out that I was being mean by asking her to speed up just a tiny bit.

El Teatriz

We had planned for dinner with Alex and Alberto the night before we left. We were looking forward to seeing them, as they are not only very good company, but they love good food, too. Not all of our friends are “foodies” but we treasure the ones who are, especially when they live in Madrid!

We met at 9:30 (PM, that is) In the Plaza behind the Opera (there are several photos of this plaza below). Alex looks great, and Alberto was waiting in the car. (A Volkswagon Tuareg, by the way. I have never been in one before. It was very nice). We hugged and kissed (twice, this is Spain) and walked to the parking lot.

Again we hugged and kissed Alberto (well, Doreen did, anyway) and we got in the car. They had chosen a place called El Teatriz, which was a converted theater (Theater Biatirz, if you need to know where the name came from) that had been redesigned by Phillipe Stark. Doreen had heard about this place, and we were eager to see what it was like. The food is ostensibly Italian (according to the guide books) but I found it much more international in style with a Spanish flair.

We sat down and were immediately impressed with the ambiance. A big, round room, tables well spaced apart, and the servers gliding noiselessly amongst them. We relaxed a bit as they handed us the menus. Doreen, Alex, and I had a Copa de Cava (Cava, if you don’t know, is the Spanish version of Champagne, and every bit as good) and Alberto had a beer. We took our time to look at the menu and talk about what we have been doing over the past several years.

The last time we had seen Alex and Alberto was right after we got married, and we were taking our honeymoon in Madrid. We had one great meal with them right on the Plaza del Opera, but then I was stricken with some mysterious ailment. If you want to read about that, go here. But it is not a pretty story.

Since that time A&A have had another baby (a little girl. I think that they were going to name her “Daniela” but they wanted to keep that “A” thing going in their family, so they took their second choice, Andrea. Their little boy is named Alex), Alberto has moved successfully through several different start-ups and established companies. He is now opening the Skype office in Spain. How cool is that? Alex has been happy at Hyperion. They have a good life, those two.

So we look over the menu, which had several categories of food. First, Local. Second, Continental, Third, Eclectic, Fourth, Specialties. Doreen decided on Fois and Fettuccini with truffle oil for her appetizer, and Seared Red Tuna for her main course. I had Ensalada Caprese (Bufala Mozzerella and Tomatoes with Olive Oil and Basil) for my started and Iberian Pork Loin for my main course. Alex had Gazpacho for her appetizer and Salmon, Alberto had the Fettucini and Fois for his starter as well, and the Pork for his main course as well. Alberto ordered a wonderful, local dry red wine called Viñas del Vero, (a Crianza), that melded great with all the food. We talked and ate, and ate and talked. We finished with dessert, Alex and I getting Ice Cream (Hers was coffee, mine dulce de leche) Alberto and Doreen each had an apple tort.

We then drove home very happy as we had a great meal and great conversation.