While I believe this to be true of every city, Barcelona is one that was shaped to wander. If you love life and texture (both figuratively and literally) then you'll probably find as much joy as I did meandering the streets and snapping shots of just about everything. Even the worst smartphone user in the universe could create the internet's most stylised Instagram gallery out of a brief wander through Barcelona's streets.
MACBA Contemporary Art Gallery
My agenda for any city always includes a visit to a contemporary art gallery (or at least I always maintain an intention to go, but admittedly it's sometimes interrupted by accidentally eating myself into a stupor). While MACBA was one of the most enjoyable European galleries I've yet to see, I won't bore you with the details since it's impossible to talk about art without sounding like a right tool.
Incidentally, people who talk about wine could interchange grape variety nouns with art words and sound exactly as annoying. I know because I am sometimes both of those people, and rarely do I actually know what I'm on about.
L'Hortet Vegetarian Restaurant
L'Hortet is right around the corner from MACBA, and when we walked past after art time I looked at the menu for the 428,928th time and decided to go in.
Nothing had changed, but I can't pass a restaurant without reading the menu – even if I've read it when I walked past five minutes before. My compulsions are absurd.
We opted for the set lunch menu (which wasn't even part of the one in the window) and it was pretty reasonable for the price, which I think was ten or fifteen Euros. Honestly I can't remember, probably from being all ridiculous with art words coming out of my mouth after the morning visit to MACBA.
We were served bread, chips, and guacamole to start, and I wanted to fight Paul for it because avocados in the UK are like eating socks and I'm really protective of avocados that don't taste like that. In the end I did share.
After that came the starters, mine a soup and his a salad. I'd like to point out this is the exact opposite of how we'd normally order and, just in case he's reading this, I'd like to remind him to stop complaining about lettuce because remember the time in Barcelona you ordered a green salad and liked it a lot? Anyway, the salad was definitely the winner. Fresh leaves with a tangy-sweet dressing and walnuts.
The mains included a stew and Fideuà, a Valencian noodle dish that's like paella made with pasta and allioli sauce. Basically it was like pasta with mayo, which sounds a bit naff but is actually fantastic because it's pasta and mayo.
Poached pears served cold for dessert. Not much to say about that (someone please find me a way to love pears).
I'm salivating slightly... I went to a great vegetarian restaurant in Valencia in 2007 — I think it was called La Lluna (I remember the double-L cos I asked my friend about it and she thought it was Catalan). I had a gorgeous aubergine dish, the likes of which I've never found since. Not bad for a culture that most people think of as being all ham and seafood!
Very true! I think people fail to realise how much the Spanish also focus on fresh and seasonal produce. Now I want to go to La Lluna...
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