The last two days in Barcelona were great and super relaxing.  Since it was sunny on Wednesday, I decided to head to Sitges, a town just outside of Barcelona that’s right on the Mediterranean.  It’s a popular vacation spot for people in this area.  The round trip train ticket on only cost 6.8 euros and the ride was an easy 45 minutes.

When the train got close to Sitges, I knew I’d made the right decision in coming.  It literally looked like the train was riding on the water and the view was wonderful.  There’s not much to the town other than a town square and the beach – fine with me!  I walked around town for a little while and found a place a place for lunch near the water.

Sitges

One thing that’s common in Spain is a set menu.  Many restaurants give you a choice of an appetizer, entrée and dessert plus a glass of wine (or soda – but who would choose that option?) for anywhere between 10 – 20 euros.  Since it’s a good way to try to some different things, I opted for that for lunch.  My appetizer was a salad – really, really delicious but nothing out of the ordinary.   The entrée I choose was Fideua – basically it’s a regional version of paella.  It’s made with small vermicelli noodles instead of rice.  I’d read about it before coming here and was excited to try it.

Since paella is saffron colored, that’s of course what I was expecting with the noodles.  Not so – I was served a dish of jet black noodles and seafood.  Luckily, I’d read that another regional thing to add to paella or fideua was squid ink.  I didn’t think I ordered that option but apparently I did.  It’s served with a side of garlic aioli that you add to the pasta.  It was actually quite tasty but it was a little disconcerting eating black food, especially seafood!  For dessert, I wasn’t quite sure what was on the way but the waiter said it was good.  It looked just like ice cream with walnuts, berries and honey.  Turns out it was cheese with walnuts, berries and honey.  It was similar to ricotta but I’m not sure if that’s what it was.  Once I got over the surprise of biting into cheese, it was really good!

Squid Ink Fideua - tasted much better than it looks!

After I made sure that my teeth and mouth weren’t black from the squid ink (apparently that can happen), I went in search of a place to hunker down and enjoy the ocean view and my book.  I found a gloriously wonderful bench that sat on top of a rock and looked straight out over the Mediterranean.  The waves would hit the rocks so hard that the water kept splashing up to eye level about 7 feet in front of me.  I propped my back up against the side, stretched my feet out in front of me and took in the view for hours.  It seriously is my favorite place I’ve ever sat.  It was a perfect, relaxing day.

View from my bench - fantastic!

For dinner that night Michelle and I decided to have pinchos.  We’d had a few days break from them and were ready to taste all we could.  The restaurant we went to had a huge selection so it was fun to try to a bunch of different things.  I like the idea of pinchos, and all the topping were really good but the bread gets to be a bit much.  We ended up ditching the bread on a lot of them.  You get the cold pinchos at the bar and a waiter comes around to all the tables every now and then with a plate of hot pinchos.  Both of our favorites was a roasted pimento stuffed with tuna – I’m adding that to the list of things to try to recreate.  The overall damage was 15 toothpicks and that cost us about 35 euros or $50.  Kind of pricey for what were basically snacks.  Since we sat outside, there was a .5 euro surcharge per pincho.  A surcharge for outdoor seating is common and many restaurants have two menus:  one with indoor prices and one with outdoor prices.  I hope that never catches on in the US.

Pinchos top to bottom: tuna topped with cheese, anchovy and pepper; spanish omelette with aioli; roasted pimento stuffed with tuna

The last day in Barcelona was not so perfect.  It rained all day and was cold.  There was one area of town that I hadn’t seen yet so I sloshed my way over to Barceloneta.  It’s the neighborhood of Barcelona that’s right on the water.   The beach there was man-made for the 1992 Olympics.  I’m glad I saw it but it wasn’t exactly the type of day to be hanging out on the beach so I didn’t stay too long.

As I’m writing this we are on the train to Madrid.  We were not good planners and didn’t even bother to get our train tickets until this morning.  We hauled our suitcases on the metro, up and down stairs and finally found the train ticket counter just 15 minutes before the train left – glad it wasn’t full!  It’s a high-speed train and the trip should take about three hours which will put us in Madrid around lunchtime on Friday.

It was sad to say goodbye to Barcelona – it’s definitely one of my favorite places I’ve been – but we are both excited about Madrid.  Michelle won’t be working here so it will be nice to have a sightseeing buddy and will also be nice to stop asking strangers to take my picture!