Un café con hielo, por favor
Coffee in Spain is excellent. During our long summer, this is definitely my favorite drink, Café con Hielo. Take some ice cubes in a glass, have the bartender bring a Café solo (aka expresso, in other countries). Sugar, no sugar? You choose. Drop the Café solo onto your ice cubes. Et voila!
The best place for this, is obviously a shady terrace!
Verano!
It’s almost summer, you’re getting hot, time to cool down with a nice drink. Popular in Spain is the tinto de verano, 1 part red wine, 1 part sweet sparkling stuff like Sprite or 7up. How you mix them is up to you! On the beach or in a cosy bar.
Pride. Catalunya. Cheers.
You might recognize the bat… You can find it on every bottle of Bacardi rum. Well… It is a cuban-catalan drink, as the guy who invented it, Facundo Bacardí Massó, was a child from Sitges, 30 km south of Barcelona, before emigrating to Cuba in 1830. The town of Sitges is enormously proud of him!
I chose black and white for this, as the Bacardi website talks about earthquakes, fire, revolution, destruction…
OK. Might have a drink now, after all this.
Le Nemours
One of the nicer places in Paris to have ‘un p’tit noir’, an expresso, the Nemours. In front of the Royal Palace, and facing the Louvre.
Tea, anyone?
I am French. Therefore I am a coffee person. But I love my mint tea, with some biscuits!
Theme day continued…A panorama, aka post 1400
Some more cafe tables, busy ones, on Plaza Real, our very own royal square.
Theme day, continued…
Some more cafe chairs… No, wait: chiringuito chairs! A chiringuito is a beach cafe.
Have a coffee!
While doing your shopping at the Boqueria market, it is essential to have a coffee! Either a cafe solo, otherwise known as expresso, a cortado, which is a solo with a little milk, or a cafe con leche, big coffee with lots of hot or cold milk. As you like it.
Pati Manning
One of the many nice and quiet places in the city center where to have a drink or two. It is the Pati (patio) Manning, a former seminary built during the 18th century in baroque style, and named after it’s main benefactor. It is now a culture center.
Let the juices flow!
A short lesson on how to make something delicious out of sugar cane.
Press the canes
Drink!
Sucs naturals
Heat wave. It is very hot, despite of a small breeze coming from the sea. So, let’s have a drink on the Rambla.
Un tallat
The time has come back for having a coffee on a terrace in the sun. This is a tallat, or cortado in Spanish, I had last night, around 6. Yes the sun was still shining, 16 degrees. A catalan tallat is a cafe solo, aka espresso, with some added milk. Coffee, the juice of life. I know many of you will agree to this statement!
El Pabellon del Espejo
We spent the day in Madrid on Thursday, and we came across this very nice cafe, the pabellon del espejo, or mirror pavillion, near Plaza Colon.
Festa Major de Gracia 2011
This week, like every year, the highlight of the summer: the Festa Major de Gracia, or the big street festival in the hip Gracia area. 15 or 20 streets, decorated with mostly recycled stuff, music,theater, food, drinks… It’s just wonderful! More in the next days.
Click on the picture to see it better!
Doorway to Valhalla
Valhalla, Hall of the Slain, in Norse mythology is the hall presided over by Odin. This vast hall has five hundred and forty doors. The rafters are spears, the hall is roofed with shields and breast-plates litter the benches. A wolf guards the western door and an eagle hovers over it. It is here that the Valkyries, Odin’s messengers and spirits of war, bring half of the heroes that died on the battle fields (the rest go to Freya’s hall Folkvang). These heroes, the Einherjar, are prepared in Valhalla for the oncoming battle of Ragnarok. When the battle commences, eight hundred warriors will march shoulder to shoulder out of each door.
Nowadays, a rock club in Barcelona. The wolf is doing the bins in the Raval, and the eagle flies free…
Took a photo of this entrance to this most glorious hall for Louis la Vache’s new(ish) meme, Monday Doorways. Have a look! Have a look a bit later, as it is still Sunday in Frisco.
Meanwhile, have a look at the Barcelona Gay Pride 2011!
Serious stuff!
I am originally from the north east of France, a region called Alsace. It is an area famous for many things, the Council of Europe, we have our own German dialect, and we have 7 wines, 6 whites and one rose/red.
And lots of beers. Although I don’t drink the stuff myself, this is serious business. The proof? This is the Beer Academy in Strasbourg!
Don’t have a lot of time lately to browse your blogs, back soon!
Dancing mojitos, singing caipirinhas
A happy waiter, dancing and swinging maracas. And below another one, doing the cocktail thing.
Meson
Probably one of the tiniest bars I’ve ever seen. The entrance is 1m60 high, 5 foot 4. It is a meson. A meson is, according to Wordreference: establecimiento de decoración típica donde se sirven comidas y bebidas, a place with typical decoration, where drinks and food are served. This one is lost somewhere in the maze of small streets composing the Barri Gotic, the old town. It wouldn’t be out of place in southern Spain.
Y un cafe con leche, por favor!
Nice place discovered last week, just behind the ayuntamiento, the city hall.
The old hospital
This was the old Hospital de Sant Pau i de la Santa Creu, until it moved to it’s present location in the early 20th century. Now it hosts some parts of the university, a public library, a garden, some cafes and other offices. Very nice place for a drink in the evening. Parts of the building go back to the 10th century.
The 4 Cats
This is one of the better places to eat in Barcelona: els 4 Gats, the 4 cats. It is the place where Pablo Picasso had his first exhibition, as a 17 years old teenager. A restaurant, opened on june 12th 1897 by a former waiter of the famous “le chat noir”, the black cat restaurant in Paris. Other famous people used to hang around here as well, the ubiquitous Gaudi, Isaac Albeniz, and so many more.
It was too early, and therefore not open yet when I passed it, but I will most definitely go back and show you the fabulous interior. Meanwhile, have a virtual visit on their website, it is a WOW kind of place!
The bar
Classic photo of a hotel bar, the lonely customer and the barman. Will they talk to each other? What will they say? Will they talk about the weather (tropical), or the meaning of life, problems at home? You know all the cliches.
Hot!
It is extremely hot here now, and it will get worse this weekend, 40 degrees announced, 105 farenheit or higher.
So, this is the place to look for, shady, with some drinks, like this one in Perpinya, Perpignan, the other capital of Catalunya.
Earth Day: Ave Maria
During the Earth Day Festival, we spotted this: hemp flavored ‘special beer’. Not everybody’s taste, I suppose! Would you drink it?
As for us, we are wine drinkers.
Cosmopolitan
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Tea, anyone?
It is getting really hot here now, not a day under 30 degrees anymore. I lived in the Eastern Med for quite a while, in several countries, and I always thought that tea, chai, is the best drink to fight the heat off. So, tea, anyone?
Summer
It really feels like summer today, and I have a bit of a fresh fruit craving.
I took this photo a while back, in my favourite market in town, la Boqueria, just off the Ramblas. The variety, and the quality, are just great. Good place to hang out, just watching stalls, people, the world go by…
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