Veteran Notes from Spain contributor and guest blogger Gary Child, is back in his other favourite city in Spain…

So then, back in Barcelona for the New Year, this time a little more up market. Usually I stay in the summer in student accommodation with a charming English lady close to Mercado Sant Antoní. On this occasion as I am traveling with she who must be adored we have elected to stay in a hotel, albeit in the same block.

On arrival at BCN I took my erstwhile landlady’s advice and elected to travel on the A1 airport bus. Though I had my doubts initially I have to say I won’t use the train again unless I am traveling beyond Barcelona to the Costa Brava. The service stops immediately outside the terminal door and runs every six minutes to the middle of town, stopping at Plaça de España, Gran Via and Plaça Cataluña. Less than half an hour door to door is great value at just over €4.

As the pound is currently being hammered on the foreign exchange markets, the first thing you notice when you arrive is that, though prices have remained stable here, things cost you a lot more. As I speak a pound is more or less worth a Euro, two years ago a pound would get you €1,40 – big difference! The hotel price, from being a reasonable £75 has shot up to £95. As the Minister for the 2012 Olympics said, “If we had known then what we know now…”, but that being the case, she probably wouldn’t have been in government.

Still, we are where we are.

Our hotel, the Hotel Market, is a boutique hotel created somewhat piecemeal out of a number of apartments. To get from reception to our room, which is 405, you get the new stainless steel, shiny lift up to floor 2. You go down a corridor and through a door into the stairwell of the apartment block into a lift which may well have been designed (and used!) by Gaudi himself and press for the 3rd floor. Because of the strange convention of naming the first floor Pra L this puts you onto the fourth floor along with Alice, the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit. The main thing is that you must manually close all three doors of the second list or no one in the building can use it. All this is difficult enough when sober, heaven only knows how we’ll manage after a few drinks on New Year’s Eve…

Anyway, we dumped our bags, sauntered down to Els Tres Tombs for a beer and returned at ten o’clock to eat in the hotel restaurant. Clearly the number of covers in the restaurant way outstrips the number of residents they could be expected to feed, though clearly the master plan is to take over the whole building eventually. Even as a resident I would advise booking as the place is very popular with locals. The meal was very good and, as always in Spain, you find yourself thinking the portions are a bit small and three courses later find yourself very adequately fed. Amazing.

Next morning we set out to reacquaint ourselves with the town; up to Pl. Cataluña, down Poratal Del Angels and through Bario Gotico to El Born before crossing over to Barceloneta for a lunchtime beer. As we passed through Plaça san Jaume there was a delightful series of tableux depicting the Nativity.

On the way back for our siesta we stopped for tapas. A a gentleman of a certain age, following the beer at Barceloneta, I needed to answer the call of nature and left Mrs C in charge of ordering. I returned and eagerly awaited our repast; there was pan con tomate, empanadillas, huevos rotos and patatas bravas.

So basically there was bread, pasties, egg and chips and a portion of chips. Ne’er a pimiento de pardon, chocos nor chipirones to be seen – you can take the girl out of Yorkshire…

Mind you, I suppose I’m as bad, there’s an excellent Indian restaurant not too far from here that Pepino introduced me to in the summer, so tonight is curry night.

Hasta pronto…

When not living it up in Barcelona, Gary Child works on great Free educational resources for the Primary classroom.