Barcelona - Day 2 and 3
Trip Start
Jun 23, 2008
1
24
25
Trip End
Ongoing
Barcelona,
Catalonia,
Spain and Canary Islands
Monday, October 6, 2008
That night we went out for Tapas. Now that was exciting. Tapas is a variety of little delicious appetizers. You pick about four or five and make a little meal. The place we went to had a great setup. The menu was printed on the place mat and there was a photo for each one. There was about fifty to choose from so we got some sangria while we decided. In the end I got:
1. Grilled Swordfish with Ratatouille
2. Brie with Sobrassada Sausage
3. Grilled Squid
4. Octopus in Vinaigrette
5. A Salmon roll with Crab and Mayonnaise
They were all delicious. I got a salty chocolate ball for dessert
It is important to realize that we were at a tapas restaurant where everything was somewhat formalized. In Spain most bars will have a selection of tapas but it is more or less just there out of tradition. Where we would have chips and nuts they have tapas. The history of tapas is not really well defined. There are stories involving King Alfonso the Wise being nursed back to health with a rudimentary form of tapas after some illness and being so impressed he ordered every tavern to serve it. A lot of others involve some version of there being a need to cover drinks with some mixture of bread or meat to keep out flies or blowing sand. In one of these tales tavern owners realized salty meat induced thirst and increased drink sales and started serving it more often. In another the owners realized stinky cheese covered the scent of bad wine. As was covered in my last entry Spain, or at least parts of it, have been conquered by many cultures, so over time tapas incorporated lots of different things. Olives are a common staple of tapas as are tomatoes.
On Day 3 we went to another monastery. Montserrat. This one was built on the top of a mountain with some pretty cool erosion going on. The views were fantastic and we ate our lunch in some little garden overlooking this huge valley.
The thing about Montserrat is that it hosts one of the black virgins and it has become a site of pilgrimage. So at this site there is one monetary and four hotels and hundreds of people. We didn't bother going up to see the black virgin, the line must have been two hours long, but I looked at a photo in the gift shop. It's no Eiffel tower.
Thats about it for those two days.
