Recently, my friend Katie
and I traveled to Barcelona. When we travel together, we tend to
focus mostly on wandering around, eating, and drinking. Here are some
of our finds and a few tips.
We stumbled across a
great little tapas bar in Barri Gotic called La Cala del Vermut, Carrer de les Magdalenes, 6. It's
not far from the Cathedral de Barcelona, but it's tucked
away enough that the tourist crowds can't find it. We had a small
lunch of a few tapas and a drink which cost about €6 per person.
The staff was very friendly, answered our questions, and tolerated my
poor Spanish.
La
Bodegueta, Rambla de Catalunya, 100 is a delightful little tapas
place usually full with patrons. It's too small for standing so grab a
table and order something
wonderful from the menu. We really liked the Manchego cheese,
the tiny pimientos
de Padrón (grilled
peppers) and the pa
amb tomàquet (bread
rubbed with tomato and garlic, then drizzled with olive oil). We
ate here twice and both times the bill was under €10 a person.
Taktika Berri, Carrer de
Valencia, 169 is a great pinxtos bar. At €1.45 per pinxtos, it can
get expensive if you eat a lot but you can also try a handful of
great items and keep it under budget. The general rule is to let the
bartenders serve you unless its very crowded; then you can take what
you'd like for yourself. Also, remember that when you are ready to
pay, your toothpicks will be counted (usually at the register) and
you will need to tell the bartender who many drinks you had. It will
all be tallied up. Side
note: It seemed that most people did not tip at pintxos bars. I'm not
sure if it was because you kind of serve yourself, although they are
filling your drinks and bringing around new pinxtos. We decided to
tip when we felt that the service was exceptional.
We didn't only eat and
drink, if that's what you are thinking so far. We also took a bike
tour of the city (bad idea), went into the Cathedral de
Barcelona (which is free before 12:45 p.m. and supposedly
free after 5:00 p.m.), and we made the pilgrimage to La Sagrada
Familia. Do not wait in line to get into Gaudi's church. Tickets are
available online via Ticketmaster (for a fee) or you can
buy them at one of the many yellow ServiCaixa ATMs and
skip the fee. The machines are tricky and don't seem to work with all
credit and debit cards, so try more than one card, pick a date
and time, and skip the line at La Sagrada Familia.
We
also made more than one trip to La Boqueria, the large market
just off La Rambla. It's a good place to buy produce,
cheeses, and ready made snacks, but it is also over-run. Watch
your bags while you are there.
