Mossen Costs i Llobera Gardens, Poble Sec

Barcelona is full of lovely gardens and some of the best are on Montjuïc. I had seen photos of a cactus garden on the side of the mountain. It’s named for a Catalan poet, Miquel Costa i Llobera. We took the bus down to Paral-lel and then walked about 1/2 hour up the steep mountainside.

View on the way up

It’s not as bad as it might be. There are seemingly thousands of morning doves cooing in a chorus and sounding unlike anything I’d heard. As you walk up the steps, at every turn there a terrace with a lovely view of the harbor and the city, with the occasional red gondola coming up from the waterfront. The bird song competes with the sound of giant cruise ships engines throbbing below. Although the morning was cool, we warm as we climb and the sun brightens.

View from Cactus Garden

The garden is beautiful. I remember seeing photos at night as there are multiple lights in the garden. Today it’s sunny and bright. We spot our first cat.

Mossen Costs i Llobera Garden

The birds continue to delight: there’s elaborate bird song and seagulls soaring and parrots squaking and other birds nesting in the cactus.

We walk up the steps and end up at Miramar hotel and a restaurant. Kitty could tell things weren’t right, but it was the restaurant Miramar with a view over the harbor that I had remembered eating at 6 years ago. When we walk around the corner we see the old restaurant in total demolition mode and realize why things seemed off in our memories. We sit in a garden outside the hotel and bask in the sun and think about lunch. The closest restaurant I have starred is a hamburger joint that won the “Best Burger in BCN” award several years back. Kitty’s been wanting a burger, so headed there.

View of BCN from Miramar

It’s about 1:15 when we get there, and we are the first customers in this very modest establishment. We order our burgers—that is all they serve and they have about 6 varieties. The bread really makes it. They are delicious. We leave satisfied and continue on down the hill towards Paral-lel. We pass the scene of our crime the night before (Carrer Blai) and can’t resist revisiting it in the daylight. It’s still charming with so many interesting restaurants beyond the four we visited last night. The neighborhood is less upscale than Eixample, but more diverse and dynamic. We think about getting an apartment there. Then we take the subway home, a straight shot from Pobla Sec to Diagonal. Nice to know this happening tapas and restaurant area is an easy ride away on the L3.

I realize I have totally turned over the navigation to Lorena. It is an interesting play on the “butch and fem” dynamic. When we traveled before the cell phone phenomena , I would participate in the heated debate on which way to go. We would bend over a map and study the best options and then have to agree. I remember the first year Lorena got Google Maps and what a miracle it seemed and how we feared it was costing us millions. Some how when we committed to the way finding of the phone I stopped participating. But it is more reliable and ready at every turn. It is just different. I guess I could look at that little screen or better at the menu del dia.

Poble Sec

We have a nice siesta—I catch up on some sleep after getting through photos. Then it’s time for our daily trek to the grocery store where we get basics like coffee and water and Arugula. We drink our cava and listen to the good news from the US that Roger Stone has been arrested. I don’t know about my Schadenfreude, but can’t help myself.