Day Five: One more nature spot

Sunday is a lazy day in Barcelona; my favourite coffee spot was closed so I wandered around La Ribera and finally found an old cafe near "Santa Maria Del Mar" -- which gave me yet another opportunity to visit the interior of the church. This is a beautiful place to be day or night.

I was feeling a little tired after eating a very late dinner on Saturday, at a highly recommended restaurant, where I queed for about an hour. It's called CAL PEP and is a narrow and very long bar where you can see the chef cook in the kitchenette. There is a small room in the back for groups but you have to make arrangements very early.

While I was queeing, they stopped letting people in so I was the last in. I got a nice bar stool finally and ended up enjoying 6 small courses: spinach with bacon and chickpeas, razor clams, regular clams with bacon, steaks with "patatas bravas", grilled giant calamari and bread with tomato sauce and olive oil. I turned away the desert!

No wonder I was feeling tired the next morning. Europe changed hours during the course of that night, so it felt like I woke up at the crack of dawn. After a second coffee and sandwich I walked up to catch the metro at Jaime Ier and went quite far to the Palau Reial which is another green space, with a small bamboo forest, bird estuary and beautiful pinetum. I walked up to the Palace which includes a decorative and ceramics museum.

The Ceramics museum's collection was surprisingly different from what I have seen in other places. Sure there were tiles, and works showing the Arab period, but the collection was well represented, the panels were in Catalan, Spanish and English, and organized under the major cities were the kilns were located.

Dinner was a simple tapas bar at La Barcolenata, the harbor area near my hotel, and then an early sleep.