Day 35 ~ Bye Bye Barcelona

After five weeks, tomorrow we leave for the final leg of our journey as we head north for a week in Paris. Tomorrow will be our last train ride (Stef has loved the train rides). Today was our last day in Barcelona. It’s a time of some reflection. For many legs of this journey, it’s been hard to leave, but we’ve left with full hearts and SIM cards bursting with memories. Our time in Barcelona has been so badly compromised that it’s hard to feel satisfied. We did our very best with some massive restrictions, but we have left a lot of Barcelona on the table. Still, what a gorgeous and fun city, and the people living here really seem to be sucking the marrow out of it. We loved what we saw, and hope to come back someday.

It’s also just a time to reflect on the nature of travel, plans, and expectations. When we were making all these plans, there was so much that just seemed totally mandatory. Looking at Barcelona specifically, there were all these quadrants of the city that I’d have been very disappointed to miss. I thought that disappointment would actually feel like anger. In the end, we missed nearly all of them. What we saw was well worth seeing, but in the end, we saw almost nothing on our list. And…it was…okay. I told myself it was essential, and it wasn’t at all. Our scope narrowed to a 10-minute radius from our hotel on some days, and that was it. There’s no one to be mad at. There’s no angry email to fire off. There’s just a little disappointment, and a lot of happy memories of what we did manage to do, COVID and all.

So what did we do today? We headed to the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar. This had been recommended to us by Daniel’s parents as a cathedral fundraised and built by the working class people of Barcelona in the 14th century – not ordered by the holy church of Rome, but a passion project for ordinary folk of the city.

There is stained glass depicting people working, in addition to the usual parade of saints and miracles.

Best of all, we managed a feat in our weakened COVID state: We climbed hundreds of steps to the top of the church, to a terrace that soared over the rooftops of the whole city. This was incredible, and maybe the best thing we did in Barcelona. We could see Sagrada Familia towering above the city (man that thing is huge!), yesterday’s Ciutadella Park, and many places we had been.

We headed to a sandwich place by the post office that had boasted an impressive line every time we went by. We don’t usually assume that a line means something special, but we made an exception today and got in line. Yep, these sandwiches were extraordinary.

After some siesta time midday, we had one, last, no-more-chances block of time to do something in Barcelona. What would it be? Barcelona was our only stop on the Mediterranean, and our last destination near the ocean. With our hail-Mary outing, we went to the beach.

Barceloneta Beach was massive and inviting. It’s so exceptional to have such a beachy stretch of beach right in the middle of a big city. It really was like stepping into L.A. or something. Palm trees and everything.

We dipped our toes in the water – a little colder than we’d anticipated, but well within swimming temperature. It was late in the day and the sun was falling fast, so we wound our way back into town, strolling by the bustling waterfront on our way.

Our final dessert in Barcelona was churros and chocolate – we’d been disappointed by our last chocolate a couple of nights before, but this was an outrageous chocolate that was maybe the best thing we ate in Barcelona.

And that’s all we got to do in Barcelona, friends. Real life caught up with us, and we felt every bit of it. There are a million things we wished we’d done, but there are a hundred things we’re glad we did. A metaphor for life, really. Until next time, Barcelona.