| Dan and I travelled to Spain and Portugal
for three weeks in September of 2002 for our honeymoon. We're not
quite sure what prompted us to choose these countries, but we'd
been talking about this trip ever since the plane ride home from Italy in
the spring of 2001. We were both looking forward to some fun and
relaxation after months of planning the wedding and all the excitement
of the wedding itself.
Getting from California to Europe takes a long time, there's just
no getting around it. The flight to Heathrow was long, and it got
off to a bit of an odd start. As we were preparing for takeoff,
a flight attendant came and asked the man sitting in front of us
to follow her to the front of the plane. She returned to get his
bag, and searched through the seat pocket. Then she brought him
back and and seated him a few rows behind us. People around us were
getting a little bit uneasy, since noone knew what was going on.
This was all especially unnerving since it was just about a week
before the anniversary of September 11th. As it turned out, the
problem was simply that he was not eligible to sit in the exit row,
and after the initial excitement, the flight went smoothly. We were
even able to see the aurora borealis from our side of the plane,
which was kind of neat.
Barcelona resembled Santa Barbara from the air: a built-up flat
area nestled between the water and the hills. We had no trouble
catching the shuttle from the airport to the Plaça de Catalunya,
which was just a few blocks from our hotel. Although we had both
gotten some sleep on the plane, we were feeling exhausted and disoriented
when we arrived at the Plaça. After a little bit of wandering
off in wrong directions, we got our bearings, found the hotel and
checked in.
We tend to be frugal travellers, and prefer to spend our money
on great food (and film, in my case) rather than on lodgings or
souvenirs. We made an exception in Barcelona, since it was the
first stop on our honeymoon, and chose a hotel that was a cut above
our typical clean-but-modest pensione. The Hotel Continental Palacete
was just perfect: very pretty, centrally located in the L'Eixample
dstrict, and far enough from the bustling Ramblas district to be
quiet. |
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The balcony of the hotel's
breakfast room looked
out on the street below.
Detail |
I managed to get a good, long rest,
falling asleep at about about 7 pm and sleeping through the night
with just a little bit of wakefulness. Dan wasn't so lucky, and
was up for several hours in the sitting room. He came in to wake
me at about 8:45, and I got up and and joined him for breakfast.
It was simple and self-serve, but good: hard-boiled egg, thick
smoky ham, a juicy pear and a sweet roll. We were initially skeptical
about the push-button coffee machine, but the café con leche
it dispensed was surprisingly good.
Best of all was the lovely setting: the balcony you see here.
We sat overlooking the square, watching the city wake up. After
we finished eating, we decided to start our explorations by taking
a walk down the Ramblas and
seeing what struck our fancy. |
