Michelle Blanchard Ardillo

Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?

This quote is from Andrew Barger’s book The Divine Dantes: Paella in Purgatory (Smashwords Edition, 2015), which is part two of Barger’s The Divine Dantes trilogy, which takes the characters of Dante’s The Divine Comedy and brings them forward to modern times. Full disclosure, I haven’t read Barger’s works, but I was taken by his quote about Barcelona, a city I visited in October of this year.

Barcelona is a gorgeous city. We stayed in a very nice hotel in the Gothic Quarter, one of the oldest parts of the city. The hotel had a little coffee shop/bar at ground level, where you could sit with coffee or a glass of wine and people watch when your feet were too tired to go any further that day.

We did a lot of walking in Barcelona, all through the Gothic Quarter. After I worked out which pair of walking shoes I had with me that worked the best on the cobblestone streets, things got much easier!

One day, we walked to the Barcelona Cathedral.

It is a stunning Gothic cathedral very near our hotel, where we attended Mass in the most beautiful chapel which has been annexed to the cathedral itself. Construction of the cathedral began in 1298 and was finally completed in 1417.

At the rear of the Cathedral there is a cloister, the Archbishop’s Garden, which contains a large pond with exactly 13 swans in it at all times. The swans represent the 13 martyrdoms of Saint Eulalia, the co-patron saint of Barcelona.

The next day we went to the site of the Sagrada Familia, which is nearly impossible to explain or take in, even when standing in front of it. The sheer enormity of this structure, along with the absolutely over-the-top architecture and adornments, is truly breathtaking.

The Sagreda Familia is the masterpiece of architect Antoni Gaudi, part Gothic and part Art Nouveau. Construction began in 1882 and has been ongoing since, even long after Gaudi’s death in 1926. It is anticipated that the cathedral will be finished in 2026 to mark the centenary of Gaudi’s death. It has 18 towers representing Jesus, Mary, the four Gospel writers, and the 12 apostles. It features three grand facades which represent the nativity, passion, and glory of Jesus.

Also right near our hotel in the Gothic Quarter, tucked into a very small medieval courtyard, is the Temple of Augustus, which was a Roman temple discovered in the late 19th century when three of its columns surfaced during construction of a tourist center. It has been dated to the 1ST CENTURY BC, specifically between 15 and 13 BC.

On a much different note, I finally was able to check off one item from my travel bucket list: attend a cooking class in a foreign country! Near our hotel, down a little alley of the Gothic Quarter, we stumbled upon a cooking school and immediately signed up for a session the next evening! It was FABULOUS. So much fun, great company with the others in the class (a large family from Liverpool, a family of four from the Netherlands, and a couple from Arizona). The chef instructor was funny, his English was great, and the food we all made together was delicious! We made two tapas—tomato bread (IYKYK) and roasted vegetables with Romesco sauce, the main course of seafood and chicken paella, and dessert was crème Catalan. I highly recommend this for an evening of great fun and good food!

Several of the nights we stayed in Barcelona, we chose to eat tapas in the hotel’s rooftop bar. And, I have to say, it’s a good thing we didn’t stay any longer, because the tomato bread (also known as crystal bread or glass bread) was so delicious! Somehow, the bread is soft on the top but the bottom shatters in your mouth like shards of glass (in a good way), with just the essence of the tomato smeared across the top. It’s drizzled in olive oil and coarse salt, and omg, it is divine.

From the rooftop we could see most of Barcelona, a beautiful view at sunset. Truly, the moon must be embarrassed by the beauty of this spectacular city!