Driving south from Perpignan, having seen in the New Year with Swedish friends (and discovered that there is nothing more enjoyable nor damaging to the health than a Scandinavian New Year’s Eve), there was a palpable sense of excitement in the car as we stopped for lunch at the Dali museum in Figueres, on our way to a proper sleep and more extravagant modernist architecture in Barcelona. A Spanish omelette would have been amusing given the massive ‘eggs’ on the roof of the building, but sadly this dish was not on the menu!
A dear Scottish friend who we got to know during our stint in Buenos Aires, has generously agreed to lend us her Eixample apartment for a few days, for this our first ever visit to the city. Her kind neighbour Antoine helped us settle in (lighting the gas boiler was beyond even Sabrina’s capabilities in our febrile, sleep deprived state) and we soon joined in the paseo for delicious pintxos and an Art Nouveau recce, as this part of the city contains much of Gaudí’s finest work, before a restorative early night.
Architecture apart, this place has everything that our family loves for a deep mid winter city break from our frigid Warsaw home- a benign climate (we are eating most meals outdoors), miles of sandy beaches centred on the old fishing community at La Barceloneta, tantalising food markets full of heavenly produce to tempt Sabrina, a fun fair on a mountain top accessed by funicular for our daughter and some of Europe’s finest museums (the Fundació Joan Miró and Museo Picasso alone are reason enough to visit). It is also close to Sitges on the Costa Dorada, where it feels like Villefranche meets South Miami beach, and not too far from the snows of Andorra, that weird duty free emporium surrounded by mountain peaks; so that in a single day we have been able to build both a sandcastle and a snowman.
Whimsical and other-worldly, Gaudí’s buildings and public works have thrilled all three of us. Montjuïc’s Park Güell entranced our daughter with its mosaic-tiled salamanders and fairy tale buildings; La Pedrera’s roof terrace with its waved balustrade and ‘helmeted knight’ chimneys captivated in the golden late afternoon light and further down Passeig de Gràcia, Casa Batiló with its ocean coloured façade and dragon scale roof cut the three other Art Nouveau Catalan starchitect’s buildings that it shares the ‘Manzana de la Discordia’ block with, down to size. Finally, the ongoing building project which is La Sagrada Familia rises from the streetscape in a weird melding of organic sculpture, cubism and the gothic and the 200 metre open air elevator ride to the top of one of the towers is almost as thrilling as the ferris wheel on top of Mount Tibidabo!
Ironically amidst all this architectural finery, it is La Barceloneta’s beachfront with its uninspiring triangle of 1950s apartment blocks (which would look quite at home in Warsaw), that has been the backdrop to our most enjoyable lunch. We sat for hours on a restaurant terrace facing sun and sand with space heaters warming our backs for good measure, quaffing pitchers of sangria as the seafood kept on coming- a perfect combination of grilled calamari and langoustines followed by a sublime Fideuà with octopus.
Fideuà con pulpo: Serves Four
I’ve yet to enjoy this wonderful dish in its home city of Valencia, but the one we had that day on the beach will be hard to beat.
500g baby octopus, cleaned
1 tsp paprika
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp E V olive oil
1 clove garlic minced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 large onion finely diced
2 large tomatoes finely diced
1 large pinch of saffron
1 tsp smoked paprika
650ml fish stock, heated
Salt to taste
300g angel hair pasta broken into 1 1/2 inches long pieces
Mix the octopus with the first 4 ingredients in a non metal bowl and refrigerate.
Heat a large heavy based fry pan or paella pan with 2 tbsp EV olive oil and add the pasta, cook until brown, remove and set aside.
Heat 2 more tbsp of EVOO in the same pan, add the onion and garlic until golden, then add the tomatoes and paprika, fry until brown. Add the stock and let boil for a couple of minutes. Then add the pasta and bring to the boil, scatter the octopus on top, cover and reduce the heat to a simmer. Simmer until all the liquid has been absorbed.
The dish should be brownish in colour, not bright yellow.
The thought of flying back home tomorrow to the snow and ice is hard to take, but at least this coming weekend, as we skate figures of eight around ice fishermen on the lake near our home, while they stave off the cold with shots of vodka and small primus stoves, we’ll have this sun-filled memory to sustain us.
Barcelona never disappoints. I was entranced by the colours and the contours of Park Guell as a wannabe hippie during a dissolute gap year in the 1970s. Then, older and wiser, my wife Claire and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary there and I was able to enjoy the city's charms in a more steady and rational manner. Both trips were incredibly memorable in their very different ways, a tribute to this very special city's myriad and enduring charms. Thank you Marco for the reminder.
I love Figueres, and, indeed, all that area in the shadow of the Pyrenees, to which we travelled many moons ago as a family from Brough in East Yorkshire. Just 2 changes and an overnight couchette. Epic trip! But with two young children we were more in churros and chocolate territory.