Barcelona Day 5: Castle and Harbor
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...