Grand Tour, Day 33: Barcelona to Abuelos

Mari wakes up Nina and Emilio for a 10 a.m. breakfast. Pablo sleeps in.  After packing up and showering, we check out at noon, and we ask the check-out manager to order a taxi for 5 to pick us up at 2:45 pm, which will give us plenty of time to get to the train station.

We then walk to the Metro Maria Cristina and take the subway to the Liceu stop on La Rambla, the best-known boulevard in Barcelona.

After walking north on La Rambla to the Plaça de Catalunya, we head back south on the Calle de Amargos in the Barri Gotic.

Behind our models, you can see Els Quatre Gats (Four Cats), a cafe which opened in 1897. Picasso, Antonio Gaudi, and other Modernists used to hang out here. According to my good friends at Wikipedia, "Four cats" is the Catalan way of saying "only a few people." Picasso had his first solo exhibit in this cafe.  The statue of Joseph at the corner of the building was destroyed during the Spanish Civil War.


When we get back to La Rambla, we visit the colorful market there.


Nina and I loved the watermelon cups.  Others enjoyed the blackberry-coconut milk.

We took the Metro back to the hotel in time to catch the taxi we ordered in the morning, but the taxi is not on time. After we wait for a while, the person at the desk tells us that today Spain is celebrating the festival of San Juan. Lots of people travel on this day, and since it's a Friday, the taxis are especially busy.

After waiting 25 minutes for a 5-passenger taxi that doesn't show, the hotel staff calls for 2 taxis at our request.

After waiting longer than we'd like for those taxis to arrive, we finally stop another taxi, and while we're loading Mari and Pablo and Nina into it, one of the taxis we ordered arrives. Emilio and I leave in the second taxi after Mari, Pablo and Nina leave, but somehow we get to the station first.

The station is very crowded and the exhaustive departures board does not list our destination: Malaga. We ask someone about this, and they send us to platforms 1 to 6, where we now see that our train is scheduled to leave in 10 mins from platform one. I flash a ticket to enter the area, and we go through a security check. And then we see a long line where train officials are checking tickets. The train platform itself is not yet in sight. Fortunately, more lines open up, and we move through quickly, but when we get to the platform, we're at coach #23, and we need to get to coach #2. It's a haul.

We just make it.

The kids play Desesperado for two stops until a group of four claims their reserved seats, and the kids move into forward facing seats without a table between them.

Pablo and Emilio sit beside each other and play a new cooperative card game they call "Larioernesto." They play for hours.

Nina journals and then naps

Mari and I have our first extended talk of the trip!

We talk about our favorite experiences on the trip (there are a lot) and things we'd do differently (there are not many).

Much of the scenery reminds me of West Texas and Arizona, with cliffs in the distance.

Most of the trees on our route are no taller than your shoulder.

I love spying abandoned castle towers in the middle of nowhere.

We see lots of olive trees and vineyards.

RENFE provides us with snack boxes that include: chocosticks, chicken salad sandwiches (without crust), cheese sandwiches, and pesto sandwiches.

I peel the carrots in our grocery bag. Pablo eats peanuts. We share papas fritas.


We are delighted to find Jaime and Maria Rosa waiting for us at the station in Malaga.

Maria Rosa's right hand is bruised and swollen, and her arm in a cast and a sling, after the fall she took while we were in Austria.

We take two taxis to the apartments Jaime and Maria Rosa have reserved for all of us in the center of Malaga.  The taxis can't get us close to the door, so we take a long walk through a commercial pedestrian area past photo exhibits to get to the tiny Plazuela de San Juan de Dios.

Pablo begs Jaime to buy him papas fritas, which Jaime does.

We miss a planned rendezvous in the commercial area, but we eventually find each other.  We're on the first floor. Jaime and Maria Rosa are in a smaller apartment upstairs.

We go to bed around midnight. MJ and I share the bedroom, and the kids sleep on sofa beds in the living room near the kitchen.