On My Way

When one gets to a certain age a modicum of comfort and some mild pampering is de rigueur. So I am flying business class with Qantas to Perth where I shall hook up with Qatar Airlines, which was awarded Skytrak's World's Best Airline for 2015, and then fly on to Barcelona via Doha.The 11hour leg to Doha went well as, after a late supper, I donned the complimentary pyjamas and climbed into my flat bed thus arriving in Doha reasonably refreshed and ready to continue on to Barcelona. At Barcelona the Immigration and Customs were a breeze and I took the airport bus to the Plaza de Catalunya and walked to the nearby apartment of Iñaki, my AirBnB host. Iñaki's apartment is very central so in order to orient myself around this district I took a stroll along La Rambla, a bustling pedestrian mall which stretches from the Plaza de Catalunya south to the Mirador de Colom, a towering monument erected in 1888 to honour the memory and achievements of Spain's greatest explorer, Christopher Columbus. Barcelona has always been a centre of culture and along the way I passed the architectually beautiful Teatre Polio, built in 1894 as the seat of the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the city's gorgeous Opera House. Just off La Rambla is the Plaça Reial, a lovely, relaxing plaza designed by a youthful Antoni Gaudi and I took a coffee break there away from the crowds in the mall under the shade of its palm trees and alongside its gurgling fountain. I continued on to the Colombus Monument and lingered there for a while. This imposing column is 200 feet in height and is no doubt the Catalan answer to Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square. The Rambla leads on to Barcelona's Waterfront and I finished my walk by ambling along Port Vell or Old Port, a delightful promenade past the yachts moored in the marina. Right in front of Iñaki's apartment is the Mercat or Market de Santa Caterina. I finished off my first day in Barcelona by dining in a tapas bar adjacent to it on Calamares Plancha (Grilled Calamari), Pulpo Gallega ( Grilled Otopus) and Carpaccio de Foie (Foie Gras and Beef Carpaccio), washed down with a couple of chilled Estrella lagers.