Rush to the Middle: Barcelona Day 2

Before we left on vacation, I had planned out all our days on a little calendar grid, complete with opening times and the necessary metro stops. In Barcelona, everything went (almost) according to plan, while in Paris we turned my little plans upside down and sideways the entire time. Sigh. But having the plan work out well for the first city meant I was fortified for the second city. But one thing that was constant throughout both cities was our eating plan. Every morning, the husband would go out to the nearest bakery and get us rolls or bread for our mid-day-ish sandwiches and something sweet for either breakfast or snack, then I would make sandwiches out of whatever pork product we had picked up the day before, either at a market or a store, which we would then eat later in the day, usually around 11am when the kids got hungry. This meant we were never, ever starving (except for one time in Paris that I will tell you about later) and we never had to overspend on snacks or meals. Such a good idea that worked out so well for us!

And for the second day in Barcelona, we began with what for me was one of the highlights of our entire trip: a kids' walking tour of the Gothic quarter. I had originally been looking into walking tours of the city and found Runner Bean Tours, which offers several free tours of the city but also offers this amazing kids and family walking tour for a reasonable fee that is utterly engaging and worth every penny! There were 10 kids on our tour, plus parents, from Israel, Germany, New York, and somewhere else in Europe that escapes me, ranging in age from 4 to 11 maybe, but the majority were 6 and 7 years old. We started at a candy store that has been making the same candy for about 150 years in all kinds of flavors including pomegranate, pine, and lavender. We had samples, which were delicious. Then we headed out of on walking tour, which included a visit to the steps where Ferdinand and Isabella greeted Columbus, the Barcelona Cathedral to identify gargoyles, a museum for larger than life puppets, a puppet-making workshop/magic store, and a visit to another candy store where we got to watch them make candy from simple syrup all the way through to finished product, all by hand. Our tour guide provided the kids with pencils, workbooks, and clipboards, along with bags to carry them in, and carried with her a huge portfolio filled with drawings to illustrate all her many interesting stories. We learned the (apocryphal) story of the flag, saw Roman columns from the old city, visited the Jewish section of the city, learned a song about the Catalunian Christmas log that poops out your presents and Christmas dinner (I am not joking; this is a huge tradition there), and generally had a great time. Three and a half hours of near constant walking and no complaints, plus new friends they made along the way = I highly, highly recommend this tour!

On the steps of the cathedral learning about the Christmas log.

It was a very interactive tour.

J wasn't too impressed with the story, too graphic for him!

But he rallied while we were singing!

More shots from our adventures.

On the Columbus steps with our own royalty!

See the huge puppets?

In the puppet workshop wearing a gorilla head! (That's E inside)

And that's J, with a flair for the dramatic.

Watching them make the candy at the last stop.

Next we took first a funicular and then a cable car up to Montjuic Castle. The kids loves the funicular and cable car, of course, but we skipped the castle itself in favor of climbing the cannons and running back down the mountain, where we encountered some of those wonderfully lawless and quite dangerous European playgrounds along the way. Back at the bottom, we headed to the Joan Miro Museum, which would have been fine except that there was a modern art exhibit first that we should have skipped in favor of going straight to the main collection, because by the time we got there, the kids were quite tired after a long, active day, so the three of us ended up sitting on the steps outside enjoying a snack while the husband finished the museum. For dinner that day, failing imagination, we ate again at the little restaurant across the street, because it was so yummy! And the hot chocolate was even thicker this time around!