Barcelona, rain, wind, rain and Pamplona

We awoke on our final day in Barcelona to surprise, rain. It hasn't stopped in about 36 hours now so why break the trend right? We packed our stuff up and checked out of the hotel leaving them with our bags while we went exploring.

Our first stop was the Cafe Vienna down on the Ramblas where one of the NY Times travel writers had said "They have the best sandwich in the world" several years back. The sandwich in question was of course Iberian Jamon on baguette with tomato, and it was really good; best in the world? Sorry Mark Bittman I'll have to disagree with you on that but it was really good.

Heading down the Ramblas towards the water we decided to drop into the Boqueria Market one more time for Cafe con Leche and I'm really glad we did. All of the empty stalls we saw on Monday were packed full of fresh seafood, produce, meats, dried mushrooms, nuts and on and on. There were four of five butchers shops totally dedicated to offal with big piles of tripe, hearts, kidneys, liver and "juevos de toro". After an extend tour in the market including another round of the fresh juices (kiwi orange and kiwi strawberry) along with a pastry we reluctantly headed back out in search of Picasso.

The Picasso Museum is in a large building down a narrow alley which was packed full of people with umbrellas trying to avoid the dripping water from the dozens of balcony's that overhang the street and do their best to be sure no one escapes from getting soaked when it rains. The Museum was interesting, they have a good collection of Picasso's work from the very early years through to the end of his life including some ceramics, cartoon like sketches done on magazine covers. It was one of the more interesting museums I've been in and well worth checking out should you have the chance.

Not to far from the museum you run into the beach which despite the rain had a big collection of surfers trying to ride some decent sized waves. We got our fill of the beach and headed back to the hotel to collect our bags and catch a cab out to the airport to pickup our car.

Driving in Spain always brought images to my head of the cars I'd seen careening around in Rome and Paris; just on the edge of in control and I was admittedly a bit nervous about joining the masses on the road but ready to give it a go. We rented a little Toyota and the first thing to get used to was the 6 speed transmission which to me seems a bit odd but once we hit the freeway to Pamplona it was nice to just drop it into 6th and roll down the road.

The best purchases I made in advance of this trip were 1. A Nikon 18-200MM VRII lens and 2. A Garmin Nuvi 1370 GPS which came loaded up with all of Europe in addition to the US/Canada/Mexico. This thing has been a lifesaver and got us through several wrong turns, round abbots and even found a parking lot once we got to Pamplona.

Pamplona

We finally arrived around 6:00 PM and found our small hotel on the edge of the old part of town. The temperature had dropped from 12 C down to 4 C as we walked out to the main plaza to find some dinner. A couple more great rounds of tapas and we hit the room for free WIFI and updating blogs, email, etc… Planning on walking the town more tomorrow before we head over to San Sebastian in the afternoon which is about an hour away.