Journey Touring Barcelona and the Costa Brava.

Destinations / JOURNEY CATALUNYA

Touring Barcelona and the Costa Brava.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY TIM PORTER

ON MY FIRST visit to Barcelona, as a young man, I spoke no Spanish, barely glanced at the architectural wonders of Antonio Gaudi for which the city is famous and devoted most of my short time there attempting (with no success) to convince dark-haired Catalan beauties that I was the American boy of their dreams.

On my second visit to Barcelona, at a more seasoned age, I could mangle Castellano, I ran the checklist of must-see sites and with the dark-haired American beauty who had become my wife I ventured north to the Costa Brava, whose gleaming beaches, warm Mediterranean waters and welcoming hill-town ambience stayed with me long after I left.

I vowed to return.

A decade later, on my third visit to Barcelona, I arrived on the far side of 60, able to hablar muy bien, still in the company of that same adventurous beauty and possessing a desire to be less of a tourist and a more of a local, which I intended to do by absorbing as much of the taste and the culture of this fiercely proud Spanish province as a I could in 10 days — half of that in Barcelona, half along the Costa Brava.

That means we ate as much as we could, we walked even more and, to quote a favorite song, we stayed up very, very, very, very late.

IT IS 10 O’CLOCK ON A SATURDAY NIGHT. I am waking up from a long nap, intent on beating down the jet lag that’s dogged me all day. I slide open the door that connects my room in the hotel Le Méridien to its terrace and a whoosh of balmy air greets me. I step outside, peer over the wall and see, far below, a river of humanity flowing along La Rambla, Barcelona’s main pedestrian drag.

Even at this hour, the expansive, cacophonous boulevard is awash in tourists and locals, carrying them on foot, on bike, in bus and by car from the city’s waterfront to its most prominent square, Plaza Catalunya. The tide rises and ebbs as day turns into night, but never stops.

In a few minutes, I am part of it, bound for El Born, a onetime wholesale district that in recent years has emerged as an edgier alternative to the well-worn paths of its northern neighbor, the Barri Gòtic (the Gothic Quarter). Here, the familiar flavors of tapas are fused with influences of non-Iberian cultures; the glow of small cafes emanates from narrow alleyways, signaling adventure ahead, and the crowd becomes younger and more hormonally fueled as the night lengthens.

“You must eat at Sensi,” said a friend from Marin who had beaten us to Barcelona by a couple of weeks.

Small, dark and imbued with palpable aromas of olive oil, spices and red wine, Sensi fed us plates of beef filet, tuna tartare with wasabi, a pot of squid stew thickened with mashed potatoes and stir-fried veggies — a menu reflecting its international ownership. The trilingual waiter filled our glasses again and again with a rich, savory Rioja.

By evening’s end, which was well into the next morning, I had eaten and drunk enough to invite the Belgian owner to visit us in San Francisco and then do the same on the street with an attractive woman from Finland and her Colombian boyfriend whom my wife and I had met outside the restaurant afterward. (I’m still awaiting their calls.)

Opposite: Girona, with the Cathedral of Saint Mary in the center, as seen from the Passeig de la Muralla; the old city walls. This page: Sunset on the beach at Calella on the Costa Brava.

THAT’S WHEN THE WALKING

This page, top to bottom: The Hotel Aigua Blava on the Costa Brava; nighttime crowd at Bar Lobo in Barcelona; view into the kitchen at Sensi in Barcelona. Opposite, from top: A cove in Aigua Blava; tapas shack on the beach in Barcelona.

BEGAN. Like all great cities — New York, Paris and San Francisco come to mind — Barcelona is an assemblage of urban neighborhoods. Over the next several days, sometimes following the Gaudi trail, but more often in search of sustenance, we explored all corners of the city near and far.

En route back from the Sagrada Familia, I scarfed down patatas bravas while seated counter-side at Tapas 24, a bing-bang-bam, New York–style lunch spot; I gorged myself on pinxtos, the Basque version of tapas, which were piled in colorful pyramids at Sagardi, while navigating the Gothic Quarter; I returned to El Born and scored seats one night at the super-popular Tapeo, where the meal began with traditional padrones (pepper seared and salted) built into an orgasmic potato salad infused with salmon roe.

I rose early to take photo walks and to search for caffeine. On one of these ventures I found myself in the Raval, Barcelona’s version of the pre-gentrified East Village in New York. Only blocks from the tourist kitsch of La Rambla I walked into a church plaza occupied by about 20 young homeless men. They could have been cloned intact from the denizens who sprawl on the Haight-Ashbury’s sidewalks — slightly out of it, dirty, tattooed and pierced, accompanied by unfriendly dogs and hardened in the face by the unforgiving needs of the street.

Across from the church, a painter’s scaffolding erected in front of a building served as a homeless high-rise. Several older men had created condos of cardboard beneath the scaffold, using its bars and pipes as a frame. One tier up, a younger man had made his home on the wooden planking.

I offered them all a loud and hearty buenos dias but kept moving when all I got in return were stares.

Down the street, Middle Eastern men were opening their bars, tobacco stands and clothing shops for day. They stood in their doorways and exchanged crossstreet commentary with each other. Just beyond, a wide plaza opened up. I expected to see elderly men there taking the morning sun, but, surprisingly, the corners were occupied by a half-dozen prostitutes, dressed Vegas-style in glittering miniskirts and towering pumps. Several dark-skinned men, pimps no doubt, watched the women from a distance.

They, too, ignored me. At a corner cafe, I grabbed an outside seat, ordered a cortado (expresso with milk) and took in the show.

Costa Brava

The beaches and hill towns of the Costa Brava north of Barcelona have none of the excitement of the Catalan capital — and that is how it should be. They are antidotes to the excesses of Barcelona.

An hour-and-a-half drive in our rented diesel sedan brought us to Hotel Aigua Blava, a labyrinthine complex of rooms and suites that occupied a vertiginous point about 100 feet above a rocky inlet.

There are bigger, broader and sunnier beaches south of Barcelona (Sitges, for example), but to me they lack the charm, coziness and idiosyncrasies of the small, wooded coves of the Costa Brava.

In Aigua Blava, for example, the path from the hotel to the public beach involves a 20-minute walk down two flights of stairs, a climb up several more, a zigzag through a neighbor’s patio — the first time I went by she had the door open and was making lunch — a long dirt path, several more flights of stairs, a tunnel, another path, a footbridge and, finally, a steep, wooden stairway.

As they say in Spanish — vale la pena! It’s worth it.

The beach is quiet, the water crystalline. A couple of small restaurants serve tapas and sandwiches and beer. Small umbrellas can be rented. As can paddleboards.

The following days flowed in a rhythm of morning at the swimming pool (hotel), afternoon at the beach (Aigua Blava or the nearby towns of Llafranc and Calella de Palafrugell) and evening dinner in Begur, a medieval town of 4,000 that sits on a rocky knob 1,000 feet upward and 15 minutes by road from our hotel.

Begur is a popular summer destination for Barcelonans and to satisfy their urban palates it abounds in sophisticated restaurants. Visitors, such as ourselves, have discovered the town, but its tight streets and pocket-size plazas have yet to be overrun with English and Russian tourists (as are the beach towns south of Barcelona). Think of it as Mill Valley compared to Sausalito.

Our favorite meal in Begur came our first night there, when we arrived late and without reservations. A conversation with a young couple who were closing their shop directed us to Rostei — and better travel advice we’ve never had.

A large stone terrace at the rear of the restaurant overlooks the town, the peaks of the surrounding hills and a neighboring vineyard that belongs to the owner’s son, the source of the tart sauvignon blanc that accompanied a scrumptious dinner of watermelon, tomato and mozzarella salad; ceviche of scallops; bacalao with white beans and bits of Iberian ham; and an entire baked turbot. The coup de grâce was delivered on the house by the owner — strawberries coated with thick, dark chocolate.

As I did in the stupefied wake of so many meals we consumed in Barcelona and along the Costa Brava, I made the precipitous drive down from Begur to my hotel thinking I’d never eat again.

But, of course, I did. Just hours before we boarded our outbound plane from Barcelona to Frankfurt and back to San Francisco, my wife and I were at Bar Lobos, a modern, animated tapas place a couple of blocks off a Rambla, attacking another plate of padrones, oohing over slices of eggplant drizzled with honey, draining another bottle of Rioja riserva and doing our best to ensure that we would at least remember forever the calories, if not the culture, of Catalunya. m

IF YOU GO

BARCELONA

Le Méridien Barcelona, lemeridienbarcelona.com Sensi, sensi.es Tapeo, tapeoborn.cat Tapas 24, carlesabellan.es Sagardi, sagardi.com

BEGUR, AIGUA BLAVA

Hotel Aigua Blava, hotelaiguablava.com Rostei, rostei.com Platillos, canclimentplatillos.blogspot.com