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Barcelona. Spain
The Barcelona airport was another ghost town, incredibly no paperwork at customs was required and we breezed through in just a couple minutes. Nice! But, it makes you wonder how they stop the bad guys from getting in. Through all that I managed to read about 75% of Dana Perino’s new book, “And the Good News Is” while Margaret renewed her prowess playing “3’s” and “2048” on her iPad and we watched 2 movies and a couple TV shows.
After claiming our bags about 10 minutes later there were hundreds of cabs waiting in several cab lineups outside and we were off right away only to hit some traffic about halfway on the 10 mile trip to the Barcelona Arts Hotel. Our travel agent had highly recommended this hotel which is right on the beach, beautiful and chocked full of young, good looking men and women to help you with anything you need. Our room wasn’t ready yet at 9 am so we checked 3 of our bags and headed up to the 33rd “Club” floor, which was included with the package our travel agent Tiffany worked out for us. The Club had a panoramic view of the city and coast, a huge spread of great fresh food, freshly made lattes and fully stocked bar. And, it was all free! Every 5 minutes someone would come up and ask if they could help us with anything…a bit overkill but what the heck? They were all incredibly nice and well-dressed young students. Within an hour one of them came up and said our room was ready on the 28th floor. That never happens at 10 am!
The room was fantastic, with a beautiful view to the South of the plentiful beaches and a nice view of the city. Margaret got us settled in the room, I went down to the incredible pool (sorry, I forgot to take some pictures) to read my book and swim a bit and Margaret took a nap. When I returned I joined in the napping.
Later, we returned to the Club for their tea service (not much Paleo stuff but it was still quite nice), had a couple drinks and some sweets and nuts and booked dinner at a restaurant walking distance from the hotel. It was, quite literally, on the beach built on a boardwalk on the sand. It was a beautiful, warm evening and there were a lot of interesting people walking along the sidewalk on the beach, beach volleyballers, a few dogs bounding across the sand, a young couple nicely kissing near the water and even a lady doing sun salutations (yoga moves) while her dog dug in the sand next to her. The food (mussels, paella and white and red wine) was just OK, a bit salty, but the overall experience was still fantastic.
Back at the Club they had 6 different Spanish wines, all of them pretty good. We had a glass and headed back down to our 28th floor pad, ready to hit the sack as we readied for our sightseeing in the morning.
