Barcelona: It's About Time

I stepped carefully around it myself, remembering a favorite old phrase: "The fools always get it right."

Our April mornings in Barcelona began late, 9-ish. Then, as the week wore on, 10-ish. Each a.m. started with thick espresso, heavily sugared and topped with crema. The rich brew left archaeological rings in my tiny cup. I complemented the espresso with a chocolate croissant bursting with cocoa goo that oozed down my chin.

Life is short. And, in Barcelona, darkly sweet.

After breakfast -- or was this brunch? -- we strolled down Las Ramblas, the tree-lined, heavily touristed promenade in the Gothic quarter where sidewalk minstrels strum guitars, artists quick-sketch portraits, stallkeepers arrange bouquets, an erotic museum unveils ancient secrets, and spray-painted mimes transform themselves into living statues of gargoyles, pistol-packing cowboys and snarling red devils to solicit euros from passersby. Pay up or go to hell.

We had 10 days to get a feel for this whirling dervish of a city, where the once-repressed Catalan language again flourishes, dominating museum labels and street signs. Those 10 days would include a side trip to the pretty little coastal town of Cadaques, Salvador Dali's old haunt. We wanted night life, day life, a big dose of art and architecture, history, mystery and a little beach-town hang time. We wanted it all. Were we headed for tourist wipeout?

Enter the Dragon

If every town has a heart, Gaudí is the pumping aorta of Barcelona. The only uninspired, straight lines you'll see around his buildings are the long queues of tourists waiting to get inside. Even using discount coupons, we laid out $18.50 each for tickets to the Casa Batllo, a private home remodeled by Gaudí in 1905, at a time when the free imaginations of architects were fed by the deep pockets of turn-of-the-century patrons ready to outdo one another in artistic excess.

I'd give Gaudí 11 lopsided stars for the Batllo, with its scaly skin, heaving dragon's back undulating across the roof and masked skulls of the dragon's victims suggested in patio facings below. Inside, all is fluid: Great halls arch like hands in prayer, light fixtures suggest chambered nautiluses, doors wave like ribbons, inset with curving stained glass.

And that was Gaudí 101. The scale grew grander at his century-old Parc Guell, wrapped around a hillside with magnificent views of Barcelona and the Mediterranean. The long serpentine benches weaving along the park perimeter are inset with lovely mosaic designs created from shattered ceramics -- bits of tile, shards of glass, pieces of dinner plates. The tiny bits seemed testament to the power of the small in the glory of the large.

I wandered the park's garden trails and found myself slipping inside a strange, immense earthen tunnel, another Gaudí creation. Imagine a frozen wave. Imagine that wave as bits of stone and soil. Imagine that you're a surfer, shooting a tube, and that the tunnel goes on forever and ever.

Then imagine you are back in the Eixample (Extension) neighborhood, standing at the foot of a sky-poking temple adorned with apostles and fruit, crosses and gargoyles -- a crusted castle that could be a thousand years old but is still a work in progress, with stonemasons and crane operators and contractors scurrying up scaffolding beneath eerie, spindly spires. Gaudí's Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) church looks like something out of "The Lord of the Rings" -- real in its own world, but here, on Earth? Gaudí, a devout Catholic who was killed by a tram while crossing the street in 1926, began work on his religious masterpiece in 1882. With enough public funding, the church may be completed by 2030.

Views from Sagrada's bell towers are dizzying, but ascending and descending a couple of hundred spiraling stone steps works up a hunger. We had quickly adjusted to the leisurely 2 p.m.-to-4 p.m. Spanish lunch -- long nibbles of meats and salads, breads and cheese and fruits, and half-liters of rioja, all costing less than $13.50 and leading right into that precious midday nap. But after Sagrada, we decided to splurge on lunch at Los Caracoles, a landmark 1835 restaurant off Las Ramblas.

I don't do "los caracoles" -- snails. But I do eat roast chicken, and a half-dozen plump brown fatties were steaming in the windows as we were escorted in, past the kitchen where paellas in squid ink burbled on the open grill. We took a table downstairs, past blackened wine barrels and bustling older waiters who must have spent a lifetime perfecting the art of the order. The dark-stained walls were decorated with oil paintings, pictures of opera singers, and mirrors everywhere. Overhead hung haunches of cured hams, ropes of garlic and heavy chandeliers. It felt as if King Ferdinand II had eaten here, toasting the successful launch of the Pinta, the Niña and the Santa Maria.