Besos from Barcelona

Talk about time flying; here we are a week since my last post and already it's time to move on to the next destination, in this case Madrid on the 12.30 flight. Which given the proximity of Matthew's flat to the station just about gives me time to quickly fill you in on what I've spent the first week of my travels doing. Firstly though, as it's cropped up in passing, I should mention how very lucky I've been accommodation wise. Matthew really lucked out with this, his latest Barcelona pad (and there have been a few!) - large, bright, modern-ish and thankfully cool, and in an amazing central location in the very trendy district of El Raval. The brilliant location means I've been able to walk everywhere so it's been good for my health too!

Walking has in itself been probably my principle pastime while here. BCN is a very walkable city - you could if so inclined get from its southernmost point on the Barceloneta to its northern reaches of Gracia in twenty minutes and a straight line, and being largely on a grid system even Americans can find their way around with relative ease. The only part of the city which doesn't follow any discernible logic in terms of planning is the ancient Barri Gotíc or Gothic Quarter, and it's such a beautiful jumble of streets, squares and churches that getting lost there is actually part of the fun, and exactly what I quite deliberately did on (hang on...checking notebook...) Friday of last week. Friday was a day for contrasts; after the very old of the Barri Gotíc it was in with the new at the ultra-modern, uber-minimalist new Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) which can best be summed up from my jotted notes which run, in their entirety, to: "Amazing building - crap art."

The weekend saw Matthew and I up sticks and head down the coast to good old Sitges, and boy has it changed, even in the year since I was there last. Sitges was always bordering on the tacky - the easy comparison being that Sitges was to Barcelona what Brighton is to London, i.e. somewhere city dwellers bugger off to for the weekend - but this time around I found little to love. Maybe it was just that we arrived on a Saturday, but the place was absolutely rammed with tourists, and not just fabulous gay tourists but families, hundreds of them, clogging every street with their double prams and triple chins. One of the things I've always loved about Sitges is that it felt so unremittingly gay, with gay people in gay bars drinking gay drinks, and really didn't get that feel this time around. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this either, judging by the scowls on almost every face among the rows of guys sitting facing off across the main drag outside Parrots Bar and Parrots Cafe; or maybe they were just all German (yes folks, good old fashioned xenophobia is alive and well and living on thirtysomethingandfabulous).

(It wasn't just the boys in the café who were scowling: there was a moment on Sunday morning when I feared for my life despite being within the supposedly safe confines of the very-nice-I-must-say Parrots Hotel where we were staying. Matthew and I went down around 11.00 for breakfast and began to help ourselves from the buffet. I needed tea, as I always do of a morning, and found that the hot water dispensing function of the coffee machine worked very slowly and needed repeated pressings of the dispense button to produce enough for even a single cuppa. Turning away from the machine to go and enjoy my brekker, I saw that a queue of caffeine-starved queens had built up behind me while I'd been leisurely filling my cup and each and every one of them was giving me death stares. In fact I swear one of them was readying to stab me in the eye with a fork. The moral of the story and Lesson Learned #1: Never Come Between A Queen And His Morning Coffee.)

But it was far from a gloomy time, despite Saturday's torrential downpour and spectacular lightning storm; we spent a good amount of Sunday on one of the non-commercial stretches of beach, away from the incessant hawkers of drinks/massages/sunglasses that offer no protection at all, and in the evening, Matthew having had to return to Barcelona ready for work on Monday, I was left to my own devices. I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't tried before for dinner, and then on for drinks somewhere I wouldn't look out of place (or like I was cruising for nookie) on my own, so I asked the receptionist at the hotel for his recommendations. Both were excellent: I had a delicious al fresco dinner of gazpacho, carpaccio and foie gras at El Xalet, sitting by an outdoor swimming pool at a candlelit table, and then moved on to El Piano (yes everywhere has an 'El' in Sitges, it seems) where I chanced upon PV's good friends The Michaels and ceased to be alone. We joined forces for a bar crawl around town and I headed to bed around 3am (at a guess) having had a thoroughly enjoyable night.

Hauling my rather hungover frame back to Barcelona early Monday afternoon, I spent the rest of the day convalescing and reading The Mitfords (which is getting a post of its own, it was so good) leaving the flat only to help Matthew lug home the shopping for the dinner he'd offered to make. Resolving to make better use of Tuesday, I went for another epic walk, this time up, down and all around the swankiest shopping streets of Passeig de Gracia and Avenida Diagonal, chancing along the way upon the Palau Robert, a beautiful town house with a quiet, shaded garden which was a very welcome haven from the heat and bustle. For lunch, I took myself off to Flash Flash, a deservedly famous and trendy tortilleria where the suprisingly formal (but not at all snooty) service made me feel very special even though I was only having a snack and a glass of vino. That evening - my last - Matthew and I ate at home again, before heading out for a night-cap at Carpe Diem, his 'local faggy bar' to use his words, where we sipped on voddie and nibbled the barman's nuts while watching Spain's equivalent of X-Factor on the big screen.

And so to bed, and thence full circle to this morning, which sees me leave Barcelona - reluctantly I must admit given the lovely time I've had - for the high octane capital city Madrid. More of this, if you've not died of boredom yet, from there!