SPAIN DAY 6 – Paella and the Park

We wake excited to be here.  Barcelona does that to you.  Designed with tons of parks and squares and playgrounds and outdoor cafes, all integrated into the arts and connected by wide, welcoming, safe walkways, this place exudes the feeling that life is for living.  And we’re going to live it some today.  And we start living it with breakfast in the Cotton House’s lovely outdoor courtyard. 

The early June weather is, again, perfect.  We cab it (Uber is banned in Barcelona) to Park Guell, one of the city’s most celebrated attractions.   The site on Carmel Hill originally started as a luxury housing development, the 60 triangular lots intended to offer the lucky owners a sweeping view of the city well away from the smoky factories.  Only 2 homes were built on the impossibly rocky terrain before the project went bust in 1904.  One of the houses was eventually purchased by Antoni Gaudi, the fabled artist / architect who designed the massive Segrada Familia basilica we visited yesterday.  Gaudi eventually reimagined the housing site into Park Guell (pronounced par-GOUL by the locals), a botanical garden dripping with the city’s flair for art and high design.  We spend a few hours wandering the grounds, the structures and gardens ranging from whimsical to lush to religious to fantasy.

(click on the image to view full size picture)

Fortunately, we got to the park early, because by the time we left, it’s packed with tourists and school trips and families.  In need of caffeine, we wander out into La Salut, the residential neighborhood surrounding the park and find a little local café with a fantastic coffee machine. 

Thanks to Mandy’s fine planning, we’re just a few short blocks from our next stop, the Secret Garden Paella Cooking Class we found on Airbnb experiences.  Our host Clara greets us at the door with a wide smile and that effortless European panache she doesn’t even know she has.  Two other groups join us, a couple and their three kids from Arizona and couple from Florida on vacation with their adult daughter from D.C.  Clara starts by explaining that today we will be learning her family paella recipe, but the recipe, and the dish itself is only a backdrop.  The frame story around leisurely weekend afternoons with family and friends that turn into leisurely weekend nights with family and friends and wine.  This is cooking I can get behind.  We are making two versions today, one “mixta” with seafood, and one traditional with chicken and rabbit and pork.  I’ve made paella before, and although it was well received by my guests, I did absolutely everything wrong.  The most important take-away is that the dish isn’t about the proteins, rather it’s a rice dish with the proteins just there to flavor the rice.  Well coached, we spend the early afternoon cooking and drinking wine and talking and drinking wine, so when the paellas are done, we dive in with exuberance.

It’s a 45 minute walk back to the hotel, but the city just yearns to be walked.  We take a semi direct route so we can check out the Gracia section of the city, a much better representation of how the locals live.  Still buzzy, and now sleepy, we retreat once again to the rooftop hotel pool.

Jay and Judy, our favorite dining partners, have made it into town even more improbably than we did.  So tonight we’ll celebrate that victory in our favorite style… at dinner.  Tonight it’s Babula Bar 1937.  Babula is a Catalan phrase that loosely translates to “grandma’s food”, and we are welcomed just like we would be at grandma’s house.  The food is based on traditional home recipes, but with the chef’s updated takes on these classics.  We start with some well crafted original cocktails and order a bottle of local red to let that start breathing.  Spanish wines are easy opening in just a few minutes, so it’s ready by the time the first tapas comes.  Food is family style, everything meant for sharing, to induce conversation and togetherness.  Second bottle of red and dessert is an event – tableside made ice cream served over silky pound cake.  We’ve been joking with Victor, our server, all night and now he starts bringing us drinks gratis for us to try, one tastier then the next.  Always conscious of offending our host, we make sure to finish each drink to the last drop.

Maybe we didn’t have enough togetherness, maybe it was the exuberation of connecting with friends in a foreign land, or maybe it was that second bottle of wine, or probably it was Victor’s very successful attempt to get us all sozzled, but we’re just not ready to call it a night.  Jay suggests a rooftop bar at the Hotel Barcelona Princess where we close the night with last drinks, great views and lotsa laughs.