September 8: Barcelona - Day 1

Well, we are finally off the cruise ship. Compared to the previous two cruises I've been on, this one was sub-par, not to say that it wasn't fun, it was just not as good as I was expecting. Maybe I had cabin fever, but I was about ready to go home, and then we stepped out into Barcelona. I'm still pretty homesick right now, but being in a beautiful city like Barcelona eases the pain a little bit.

By the time we got to the hotel it was about 9:30 in the morning and still too early to check in so we dropped off our luggage and caught a city sponsored bus tour. The tour was nice because you could get off whenever you wanted and they had enough buses running that you could get back on in about 3-5 minutes. 

The first time we got off the bus was at Mont Juïc, which is where a lot of the Olympic events took place in '92. After that we rode the bus down around the port area and out to Port Olimpic where they held the sailing events. Then we circled back around to the downtown area and got off the bus in the Barri Gòtic or the Gothic Quarter. We wandered around for a little while and then decided to head to Barceloneta, which is down by the port, for lunch.

We ended up going to a little place that had no signs whatsoever, but it was called La Cova Fumada. When we first got to the restaurant most of the tables were taken, but we were the only people waiting to be seated. By the time we left all the tables were stuffed to capacity and the bar was shoulder to shoulder. There were probably 15-20 people waiting outside the restaurant.

We had a huge selection of tapas style dishes including potato "bombas," garbanso beans with garlic, garlic toast, tomato toast, grilled mackerel (barat), grilled squid, grilled octopus (pulpo), chorizo sausage, sautéed cod or bacalao, salt cod fritters (buñuelos de bacalao), beef cheek stew (cap i pota) and finally some mushrooms sautéed with garlic. 

bomba

bacalao

cap i pota

barat

The whole meal was amazing, it was probably the best meal we have had on the trip. It's always a good sign when you're the only tourist in a restaurant, even when they are packed to the gills. After we finished lunch we walked back to the Barri Gòtic and caught the tour bus back to our hotel.

buñuelos de bacalao

octopus