Carnegie Hill Mom

Late Monday morning, we took a cab up to the very top of Montjuic, where we admired the sweeping views of the Mediterranean and the vast city of Barcelona from the vantage point of the castle, which served as a lookout tower (guards could send signals down to the city with daytime flags or nighttime fire if an enemy ship approached), prison, and execution site over the years. We wandered through the tiered plazas of the Jardins del Mirador with more great mosaics, dry fountains, switchback gardens, and forested paths downhill to the Teleferic del Port cable car. It carried us across the expansive port with its yachts and cruise ships and down to the sliver of beach.  We lingered at a beachfront bar, where I waded in the sea before cooling off with cava sangria (my new favorite drink), a mojito, and white wine. Locals used the beach as their gym, running sprints in the sand and doing pullups on the bars. We hopped over to a restaurant next to the W Barcelona for more wine, tapas (sq

On Sunday we slept in, only setting our alarms for 9:00 a.m. to catch the tail end of breakfast: churros with chocolate, melt-in-your-mouth potatoes and eggs, and a salad (because I was craving fresh veggies after our meat-, cheese-, and bread-heavy restaurant diet). We perused the Picasso Museum that morning during a pocket of unscheduled time. Favorites included a blue still life with doves perched on a window and Picasso's many variations of Velazquez’s Las Meninas painting. Apparently, Picasso preferred to study the masters by copying their work at the Museo del Prado in Madrid rather than by sitting in a classroom. Afterwards, we picked out pottery and tile magnets at a shop, wandered around the greenhouse and lakefront fountain in the Parc de la Ciutadella, and shopped for a hand-made leather bag at an atelier.  We strolled north for a late lunch at Els Quatre Gats, the restaurant where Picasso held his first solo exhibition. A delicious seafood paella and brisket with g

With Saturday came a total change of scenery in the form of a day trip out of the city to Montserrat Monastery and Oller Winery about an hour northwest of Barcelona in the physical, cultural, and spiritual heart of Catalunya. We navigated the multi-level bus depot Estacion Del Norte, met our peppy tour guide Leslie (dad joke expert), and listened to 2,000 years of Catalan history in 20 minutes. Apparently Barcelona was originally a Roman outpost useful for trading along the Mediterranean Sea. Under Franco's dictatorship (Franco was buddies with Mussolini and Hitler), attending Catholic mass was mandatory and speaking in Catalan was illegal–but the language survived with the help of subversive monks and congregants who continued to chant in their native tongue during mass. We transferred to a cogwheel train and ascended Montserrat (which means Serrated Mountain), recognizable by its knobby crest like a dragon's back that likely inspired the towers of La Sagrada Familia and

Thankfully, we awoke refreshed and ready for our first full day in Barcelona, during which we would focus first on Gaudi up north and then on food down south. We filled up on a delicious hotel breakfast buffet that featured yogurt parfaits with honey, a fresh fruit bar, artisanal bread with jam, chocolate croissants, and almond cake. The melted mozzarella tomatoes along with roasted potatoes and chorizo left nothing to be desired (aside from a larger appetite to taste even more!) Casa Batllo We set off west and took in the stunning beauty of Casa Batllo in the early morning rays. The exterior reminded me of the sea with its coral-like balconies that also resembled bones or masks. The blue tile and window shutters invited the eye to linger and wonder what beauty lay within. We first entered through a basement room and stood on a moving sidewalk that circled around a sleeping figure depicting the architect Gaudi. Meanwhile, lights and projected images flashed and swept around the roo

I breathed my first sigh of relief upon spotting my suitcase circling the baggage carousel at Le Pret airport, still groggy from a red-eye flight that was punctuated by the friendly chatter of two ladies to my left, a veggie stir fry, and a bit of slumber as the sun rose over the Iberian Peninsula. The second sigh of relief came when my phone worked properly on the international travel pass plan so I could find the friend I was meeting. Soon we rendez-vous’d in the airport entrance hall, giggled over our surprisingly matching backpacks from Peru, and set off to find the A1 Aerobus with its finicky ticket kiosk and substantial, spiraled line. The bus brought us along a major highway, through an arid landscape of dry grasses and concrete, and into an urban expanse of apartments that gave way to the grand boulevard lined with balconies that we came to know as Grand Via, a major thoroughfare dissecting the city the way that Central Park South separates NYC’s uptown and downtown. We veere

As I sit aboard my delayed flight, trying to make my way home to New York City, I'm reminded of a sign that caught my eye recently at a rock climbing gym. It read, “Spend More Time Doing What You Love.” Instead of pouting at the delay, I used the forcibly carved-out time to focus on doing something I love: travel writing. There's nothing like the constricted space of an airplane to bring about the freedom to write to my heart's content without feeling the pull of household chores, social commitments, relationship responsibilities, or incessant emails. This trip to Barcelona has been an exercise in setting aside the demands of daily life to spend time doing what I love. Exploring a new city is way up there on my list of favorite pastimes. There's indescribable joy to be found in sampling local cuisine, deciphering the public transit system, taking in a museum, shopping for mementos, and wandering through green spaces and along waterfronts. The idea for these five day