The plan was to spend Thursday morning, through a 1pm lunch, on Montjuic, the little mountain in Barcelona hard by the Med.
There are multiple ways to Montjuic, and we decided to do it the same way we did back in 2019. So we Metro’d down to the Barceloneta stop, and popped out right by our old apartment. After taking some photos at the base of the building we walked down a much less busy sidewalk to the beach, and took pictures of our beloved beach bar, the Barceloneta Chiringuito.
It’s funny. The Chiringuito only gets 3.4 stars on Google, but we love it. Now, all we’ve ever done there is order drinks and olives. But it’s the vibe that matters. Open to the beach, it’s a great place to people watch, hangout, and relax. I don’t even know how many times we went there in 2019, but it was at least twice a week.
We went to the base of the cable car, which is much closer to the beach bar than I had remembered. After buying tickets and taking the elevator up, we had to wait three cable cars before we could get on.
The cable car is the one place in Barcelona where we were required to wear a mask. Which is a joke, because they had four of the windows open, so air zipped through the cable car at a pretty high rate. There is no way there would be COVID transmission on that cable car, whether we were masked or not. It’s amazing how many institutions just completely ignore The Science in favor of rules that do absolutely nothing.
The cable car is enjoyable – great views of the city, as well as of the ports and the Med. It only takes you about halfway up Montjuic, so after getting off the cable car we headed for the gondola for the final ride up to the fort that dominates the harbor and affords stunning views of Barcelona.
By the way, Montjuic translates as Mount Jew(ish), as there was an old and historic Jewish cemetery there (and a much larger, not nearly as old, cemetery where many famous Barcelona residents are buried as well).
Since each group gets its own gondola for the ride up to the top, we were told to mask up, but like everyone else on the gondola, we ignored the mask requirement. It’s a pleasant way to get up to the castle.
Editor: You keep going back and forth between calling it a fort and a castle.
Blogger: Well, it’s a fort, but they call it a castle. Hope that clears it up.
We wandered around the castle terrace, which affords amazing 360 degree panoramic views of Barcelona, the mountains, the Med, the harbor, Tibidabo, and more.
There are records of a lookout tower on Montjuic as early as 1031. In 1640 the government decided to build a wall around the tower.
We had 1pm reservations for lunch at a restaurant with a view, right at the base of the gondola (its called a Teleferic, which is a very cool name.)
In 2019, the restaurant was closed for renovations. El Xalet de Montjuic is a spectacular setting for a meal. As the first to arrive, we got a primo table right at the edge, with views of all of Barcelona. It’s derided by locals as a tourist trap, but we really enjoyed it. It’s only 3.5 stars on TripAdvisor, but it was five stars by us.
From the outside it looks like a crummy restaurant, but once you step past the facade, it’s quite nice. Now that we are back in the States, I read some of the unhappy ratings on TripAdvisor. They mostly had to do with complaints about the service, or unhappiness with the food. We had neither complaint. The five star reviews were glowing, so I suppose it has to do with how things went for customers that day. I’m glad I hadn’t read the reviews prior to going, because we would not have gone.
After lunch, my group expressed opposition to walking past the Olympic Stadium, down past the MNAC museum, and past the magic fountain. Instead, we took the funicular down to the Paral-lel Metro stop. The funicular has the budgetary advantage of being covered on the Metro card, so it was both a time-saver and a Euro-saver.
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