Four days and three nights of confusion and disorder in Barcelona are now behind us, In between all the tapas and Estrella’s, the picturesque streets of El Born and the larger-than-life Raval, there was even place for power meltdowns and rain storms. Here’s the best stuff straight out of the capital of gorgeous Catalonia, the city of Gaudi, Guardiola and Good Times.
Resolis – Facing Riera Baixa, Barcelona’s vintage street in the heart of Raval, Resolis is a tapas bar in an authentic Spanish bar setting, without missing out on the modernist touch. For a red note you’ll sooth your tummy with well-prepared Catalonian delicacies; we went for the cerdo con manchego and rollos de pollo. Yum-yum-times up for grabs.
Federal – Our safe haven from the raging storm. A coffee joint set up with good taste just off St. Antoni metro station in Raval. The Aussie owners have done a much-obliged job. Besides the quality coffee Federal mixes its macchiatto’s and cappucino’s with the freshest and purest of ingredients. The minimal design including one big, last-supper-like table creates a relaxing atmosphere and an opportunity to bond with the savvy-looking clientele. Final result: bloody awesome.
Parc Güell – Parc Güell is the best free treat of Barcelona. It is a result of Antoni Gaudi’s endless imagination with all it’s colorful mosaic sculptures, tubular hollows and the two Hansel-and Gretel-style gatehouses, originally homing the gatekeepers of the park. The park was constructed in the 1900’s when Count Eusebi Güell bought a hillside property and hired Gaudi to construct a garden playground for the rich. Nowadays, there’s even a set of escalators built to help the trek up the hill, even for the most obese Yankee Simple-Jack’s. Once you get up, besides all the Gaudi art, the views all over Barcelona really make it worth the effort (no guarantees for people over 300 pounds). This is also the densest camera per tourist area in Barca, so make a little fun out of it by cockblocking Japanese tourists taking pics. They’re the only one’s who bow and thank you when you stop. Tankkk Yuuuuuuu!!
Massive view from the top of Güell
Kiosko – Hands down, best burger in town. An innovative idea combined with a great product and a playful space equals success. Burger bar Kiosko is enjoying this well-earned success just a few 10 metres off the Barceloneta underground stop in plain El Born district. The menu: 13 different burgers raging from the Classic 200g beef with tomato, salad and onion to the Swiss with potato rösti and Gruyère topping the beef and salads. You place your order by ticking your choices on a small menu pamphlet, where you can choose the type of bread, the cheese and the potatoes to go with the burger. Besides delicious and mouth-watering, this is the first burger that actually tastes healthy. I can only think of the Portuguese gourmet burger restaurant H3, with as good a burger as this one. Go for the Classic for starters, and bite after bite move yourself to the big league of the Santa Caterina and Catalunia burgers. All this for the price of a normal fast food joint meal! On top, the shop has the interior of a cool modern gelateria, with Batman cartoons decorating the toilet’s walls. This place will make all the QP’s at MD’s and the Double Whopper’s at BK’s taste like raccoon shit.
Best burger in town with aioli potatoes
Razzmatazz – The indie and house music party central of Barcelona. A complex resembling an old-hangar-like warehouse, you might get at (drunken) times lost. Each one of the spaces has it’s own separate music program, five in total: Razz Club, The Loft, Lolita, Pop Bar and Rex Room. We only found two. Nuff said.
Conti 24 Kilates – Situated along the south end of Carrer del Comercio in El Born, K24K is the shop for all the clientele who share a love for sneakers. Besides the standard Nike’s, New Balance’s and Reebok’s, the store also shelves seasonal and limited edition footwear, not to forget a small but good-looking selection of clothes, caps, mags and street-art books. If the price tags look too high for your taste, just have a chat with the owners on what’s happening around town; they’re always in for a good laugh.
W Eclipse Bar – Emulating a giant silver knife highlighting the Barcelonan skyline, W encapsulates the rebirth of modern cool in the Catalan capital. Walk straight past the glass and LED lit reception area, which with it’s textured classy beanbags and plenty of fashion and lifestyle books scattered effortlessly around, abolishes completely the concepts of traditional check-in. You’ll find yourself in front of four elevators, with three of them going only to the penultimate, 25th floor. The last one, the one with the red carpet and the bouncer, is the one to take to the 26th floor Eclipse Bar. In this posh end extravagant environment, you might think the Eclipse would be overpriced. In reality you can enjoy a local Estrella beer for 6€, which is a relatively accessible price for the picturesque view and smoking hot waiters, smiling like they were on a beauty pageant.
In between the shops and restaurants, cafes and clubs, on Saturday afternoon a rainstorm exploded on top of Barcelona, raging for a good two three hours. We were on the subway when it started, so when we got to our home station of St. Antoni in Raval, it was raining a rain so heavy I have never witnessed before. It was fun to watch the Spanish kamikaze runners, who before running up the stairs first gathered courage for 5 minutes, just to realize at midway they're already soaking wet. When the rain slowed from heavy rain to pouring rain, we made our move and ran two blocks to Cafe Federal, where we dried our shoes & clothes while sipping coffee.
The view from the St. Antoni metro exit
Flooding streets of Barcelona
Water everywhere
Lauri fighting for his life in Raval
We got to our apartment (we moved after the first night in the Melon District to an apartment in Raval), where electricity had gone down due to the storm. So we took the subway's green line to Fontana, a tourist-free district just beside Gràcia, full on life and Spanish culture. Narrow streets decorated with attention-to-detail residential buildings, that lead to spacious plaza's with churches, cafes and playgrounds. Kids playing football, retired Spaniards puffing fat cigars, dogs running free on the streets and street artists playing accordion. Not a single tourist in sight. We ended up sipping beer at this local Theatre Nou institution, which had a café and bar downstairs, and a popular theater upstairs. Awesome joint.
We returned to the apartment, and the electricity was still missing. The apartment's half-wit slobo-receptionist called Oleg just shrugged and said "whole street no lights", when we asked about the power shortage. The whole damn street looked like a fucking Christmas tree. We told him it was impossible for a hotel-apartment to be the only place without light in the district. Oleg got a bit mad, expressing it in his three-year-old, retard way: "call the manager, call the police, call the president!!!". Unbelievable. We filed a complaint for compensation the next morning, and left Barcelona in the evening. By the time I'm writing this post, we have already reached Bilbao, our second destination. Last night we took a bus for 40 €, that took a painful 7 hours to reach the capital of Basque country. Bye bye Barcelona, hello Bilbao. So it goes.
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