Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter

November 27

Sam:

Today we took three trains to Barcelona. The first was from Nice to Marseilles, Marseilles to Nimes, and then a speed train to Barcelona. We then took a cab to our AirBnB. Because it was already evening, we decided to have dinner at a local restaurant called As de Pikas. It was an American-style burger joint that was very popular with the locals. The food was fantastic.

November 28

Charlotte:

Today we were going to have a free walking tour, so first we met up at Placa de Catalunya, the main square of the city. We found our group by looking for people with purple umbrellas. Our tour guide was named Gianfranco (Franco, for short). He was awesome and so dramatic!

First he showed us the Roman tombs. There was a red brick road with tombs along it. He told us that they didn’t have much space for the tombs and didn’t want them inside the city, so they put them beside their road that connected Barcelona to other cities. The ancient Roman road was actually underneath the modern city that is there today.

Then he was going to show us the cathedral. It was very fancy, but Franco told us that it used to be just a plain square building, and I was wondering how because it was so intricately designed. It was kind of funny when he explained that they the people of Barcelona are very efficient – they put a new front on the old cathedral. He showed us behind another building there was no more fancy design. It just cut off and was very plain. I giggled a little because it was kind of lazy.

We walked around a lot and saw lots of the area.

We went to another square, and we learned about Catalan and how Barcelona is the capital of the region. Some people want Catalan to separate from Spain. They have special flags on display.

Franco told us the story of Saint George.

Once in the city there was a dragon that was burning and burning down houses and then someone was like we need to stop this and then they went to the dragon expert of the town. The dragon experts said that it was hungry, so every day, the citizens give the dragon lots of food.

Eventually the dragon wouldn’t eat the food and wanted humans instead. Each day a name would be selected and the human would get eaten by the dragon.

After awhile, the Dragon started burning down houses again, and the dragon expert said to the dragon, “We’ve been giving you a human each day. Why are you burning down houses?”

The dragon said, “I don’t just want plain humans. I want Royal humans.”

Everyone was surprised but a princess volunteered to get eaten. Then as she was just about to get eat eaten, St. George came on his horse and attacked the dragon, stabbing it in the heart. Where blood dripped into the ground, a rose grew, so St. George picked it up and gave it to the princess. The princess wanted to marry the saint, but St. George refused, saying, “I like killing dragons.”

Now St. George is the patron saint of Barcelona.

Then we went to an art sculpture. It was very tall, and it looked like wire. I wanted to climb up it. then Gianfranco told us that the sculpture represents a sport some Spanish people do, called Castells. On special occasions, a team of people make human castles. They climb on each other and make a big tower and then a 6 or 7 year old kid would climb up to the very top and hold up his 4 fingers to show that they are finished. The tallest one ever was 10 storeys of people high!

We had a break and Mom had a drink called Sangria. It is popular here. It is red wine with fruit cut up in it.

Next we went to a school that Gianfranco said was an orphanage that was bombed during the civil war. Lots of children and nuns were killed that day. The holes from the bombs are still in the walls so that people remember what a horrible time that was.

Sam:

At the end of the tour, we walked to the churro place that Franco had told us about. We got some “Churros con chocolata”. Churros are kind of the donut of Spain and often come with a cup of drinking chocolate for dipping.

After that, we walked to a place called the Mercado de La Boqueria. The Mercado de La Boqueria is an open air market that sells most things you might need like fresh fruit juice and smoothies, meat, cheese, fruit and veggies, seafood, and spices. We tried some fruit juice and it was really good. There are so many different flavours to choose from and they are only €1.

We left the market and stepped onto Las Ramblas, a big street with a walking path down the middle of it that led back to Placa de Catalunya.

We then had a dinner of sausage paella with spices Mom bought at the Mercado de la Boqueria and roasted carrots at home. For dessert we all tried persimmon for the first time (also bought at the market). It is very sweet. We thought it tasted like a cross between a melon, a pear, and a plum.