Yesterday was a national holiday in Spain. So this evening Scott and I left the hotel well after lunch. Because of the national holiday, most of Bacelona was closed, including the little bodega near the hotel where I usually purchased beer and bottled water. Recently I've been drinking Damm Lemon, a rather refined mix of beer and lime juice. One beer writer has described it: "Hazy golden with tiny white head. Very sweet aroma with lemon notes.Ends sweet and refreshing. Lots and lots of foam. Aroma is strongly citric, but also has some hints of hops." And it's really good stuff at .50 Euro/ can so it's my current "summer" drink of choice.
About the national holiday: Spain has complicated politics and since 1987, Spain has celebrated the anniversary of Columbus' arrival in the Americas as its Fiesta Nacional or "National Day", an odd kind of compromise between conservatives, who wanted to emphasize the status of the monarchy and Spain's history, and Republicans, who wanted to commemorate Spain's burgeoning democracy with an official holiday (this is according to Wikipedia).
Scott and I walked down Barcelona's wide diagonal boulevard toward Casa Milà, by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, on the Passeig de Gràcia in Barcelona. This is truly a marvelous building and has an open roof with magnificent views of Barcelona, the harbor and the Mediterranean Sea in the distance. Indeed, Scott the Professional Photographer spent more than two hours taking a variety of photographs from the roof and the interior. I took a few shots myself and you can see them, above, and by clicking on the "slide show" link to the upper right.
We stayed on the roof of Casa Mila until the sunset. Then we wandered around Barcelona's Barri Gotic (old town) with its ancient Roman Walls and narrow streets and we took in the sights on a warm October evening among thousands of other tourists.
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