Fish liver, Funicular to Tibidabo, Gràcia fest, a 7 mile walk, more craft beer!

When we picked up the merluza from the fish monger, we picked up a big bunch of monkfish livers. We've only seen these in tiny portions at exotic Japanese restaurants. Our monger had kilos of giant livers -- these fish must be heavy drinkers. At €4.50/Kg ($2/pound) we got a batch, we'd figure out something to do with it. For breakfast, I fried them up with a bit of schmaltz (chicken fat) irene had left over from roasting our chicken yesterday.

A bit of radicchio for bitter contrast and some bread and we were ready to hit the streets. The liver had a slight livery-ness (which I find too strong in mammals), and a bit of fish roe flavor. I might not seek it out specially, but it was fun, and we've got some ideas for other preparations; stay tuned.

Another perfect day in paradise. Let's get out and hit Tibidabo, an amusement park built in 1899 on a mountain overlooking Barcelona. We weren't that interested in rides, but heard it had outstanding views; we were not disappointed.

After walking to Plaça de Catalunya in the center of town, we found transport folks blocking our intended line: construction. My Spanish still sucks but I was able to ask for and get an alternate route on a train line that would take us to a funicular. Funiculars are like railways but up steep hills and mountains so the downhill side of the car is elevated to keep the car level; inside the seats are stepped.  Below, the view looking down, as we were pulled up. Cleverly, there's only one track but two cars; they cross in the middle, allowing the weight of one car to counterbalance the other, but without the expense of duplicate tracks.

We goto the Funicular station without incident. Barcelona's transit system is integrated and our 10-trip ticket covered metro (subway), the S-line trains, buses, trams, and also the funicular. We took this to the top, where we waited for a bus to take us the rest of the way. This mountain road was full of spandex-clad Lance Armstrong types with thigh muscles the size of  Iberian hams. The bus patiently followed the riders as they grunted up the steep hills.  Turns out the buses don't run that often and our funicular group filled the bus (yes, it *was* a short bus :-), which really pissed off another group further up the climb that shouted epithets as the driver blew past their stop.

We reached the top and there were plenty of ferris wheels, rides (some almost 100 years old), but happily, we could mill about and take in the out-fucking-standing views without charge. We also could buy a beer at a tolerable price.

You can expand these photos. The two towers in the center are on the waterfront near where the 1992 Olympic park started redevelopment. Further to the left, the tallest building, back from the waterfront, is the AgBar "gherkin" building. We walked to those the previous day, from way over on the right, off the frame of the photo.

In addition to selfies, I've figured out how to do panoramic shots. When will the madness stop?

We'd considered walking down from Tibidabo home, but our feet were killing from yesterday's 10-mile jaunt. We took the bus, funicular and train back to Gràcia, which is where we hear all the hip people live and and cool shops are located. We found this beautiful steel-capped market-looking building, but it was closed.

Then we stumbled across the Gràcia festival; how the hell could we almost miss this? Different blocks compete with each other to decorate their area, and cafes sell drinks and snacks from their storefronts. This one had a Flintstones theme, with a stone-wheeled bike (hi, Dana and Kelli!)

We stopped at a cafe to refuel, yeah, mojitos aren't very Spanish but everybody was selling them, and the cafe was Dutch anyway with bitterballen and haring. So we mixed it up with a mojito and chistorra sausages. Super friendly folks and only €10 for both of us.

Some beautiful architecture in this area too, including this hotel; the windows in the upper floors windows with details that make them look almost arabic. Irene got some dulce de leche ice cream in a shop here, it was really good.

And then this. I didn't want to believe it, but I suspected, and a sign confirmed: it was a Gaudi design. In this one, it looked like he just didn't know when to stop adding stuff to it.

And another festive block, this one with a circus theme, light fixtures made of plastic soda bottles, games for kids.

The walk home was 30 minutes, so we hit a place our AirBnB host had recommended that was right on the way, Bar Velódromo. Wow, what a beautiful place, all art deco, stunningly restored by the Moritz beer family who bought it when the original owner retired.  Surprisingly not stuffy, despite such well executed fare as tuna tartar (for me) and steak tartar (for Irene).

As we continued on toward home (only 15 minutes away now), we were so distracted by this outstanding building -- seemingly a combination of a 1950's cinema and arabic inspired brick- and pale-colored layers -- that we almost walked right by...

a craft beer bar! We took a look inside BierCaB, were drawn in by the cool ceiling and then noticed the 30 taps.

Many of the selections were American, quite a few Belgians, but we chose a couple from Spain, including Irene's brewed in Barcelona.

They had an electronic display of the beers available and upcoming on tap, and I was able to photo-bomb their display of their Twitter feed.

By the time we'd gotten back, my phone informed us we'd done a 7-mile walk. Not as much as yesterday's 10-miles, but pretty damn good. Hopefully enough to burn off some of that fish liver and beer.

Getting around is easy

We've been walking around everywhere, averaging 4-5 miles a day. It's a good way to see the various parts of the city, and burns off some of the calories we've been taking in from all the good meals. When we eventually move here, we don't plan to have a car -- no, more than that: one of the reasons to live in Barcelona because you absolutely don't need a car; we do not want a car (how very unamerican).

When we went to London, we walked a little over 10 minutes to get the Aerobus to the airport; it was €20 for the two of us, round trip.  It even had wifi and USB charging stations. Painless.

One of the places we're looking at is a couple blocks from a major international bus station. We could walk out our future door, and in 5 minutes be on a bus to Madrid, Paris, or Casablanca.

I haven't looked at the schedules to see how long that would take, but it does sound exotic and easy. It may be easier for us to catch a flight from the US to Girona, then the bus to the station, rather than flying into Barcelona. Options, options.

The flat we're looking at is also an easy walk, past the Arc de Triomf

to the França train station. We could be in Paris in 6 1/2 hours, or on the high speed train just 3 hours. That's a lot more fun than the living hell that is Ryan Air and airport security theater.

We can take ferries from the Barcelona port to the Balearic islands, to Italy, or even Sardinia and Morocco. Yeah, it's an overnight sail, but consider it a floating hotel, or a cruise across the Med.

Much more mundane -- and useful day-to-day -- is the city transport.

We took the Metro across town, from Tetuan to Parallel.  Well, we tried to. There's track work and our train only went two stops before turning around. I didn't even notice it until almost too late. When we got out to transfer, we saw the big signs mentioning the construction and closures, and they should end next week. Unfortunately, the transfer at Plaça de Gracia from Purple to Green line was a long walk, felt like 10 minutes underground in stifling heat; I don't know if this is normal or part of construction but it makes a hell of a transfer -- for now I'm chalking it up to construction or our ignorance.

Since we'll be here a while, we got a bunch of tickets. They were surprisingly reasonable: a batch of 10 trips for only €10; that's well under the price we pay in DC.  The trains are good and have helpful displays of arrival times. It's an extensive network that we'll use a lot. Definitely a bargain.

We haven't taken buses yet, but we ride 'em all the time in DC. I believe our Metro tickets work just fine on them, and they're all over the city -- at least outside the old part, the Ciutat Vella. We should find a circulator route or a couple big connecting lines that take us on a loop throughout the city, our own personal chauffeur. If it's also €1 per ride, it's cheap.

Barcelona's got hills and from our roof deck, we can see two different cable cars. I'm gonna steal a photo from another site, because now I know that I can see both stages, with our view of the center tower blocked by a big building.

There's also a funicular or three.  We were on one of the cable cars last visit and the views were outstanding.  Definitely need to give them all a go this time.