Destination Barcelona

Where to stay on La Palma, Canary Islands

admin — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:29:29 +0000

An abundance of accommodation is available on the island of La Palma, the most north westerly of the seven Canary Islands and the fifth largest in terms of area. As well as hotels, there are villas and apartments available all over the island and self-catering holidays in a privately owned bungalow in the countryside or on the coast are popular. Many La Palma holiday houses and apartments have swimming pools and excellent restaurants nearby.

The island’s capital is Santa Cruz de la Palma, which is also the main port on the east coast and contains many stately town houses dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. For those who enjoy what passes for hustle and bustle in La Palma, this is the place to stay, with shops and cafés along the pedestrianised and cobbled main street. There are many museums in Santa Cruz and a historic castle at the northern end of town.

Over on the west coast and in the interior of the island, accommodation is likely to be quieter and more remote, apart from places in Los Llanos, which is the largest settlement on the west coast. Beach properties in areas such as Tijarafe and Tazacorte are popular. There are some sophisticated resorts too, such as Los Cancajos, which has beautiful, clean beaches and is popular with family groups.

Fuencaliente lies on the south coast nestled among seven volcanoes, vineyards and forests, and there are a number of holiday resorts and spa hotels in the area.

Sports fun on the island of Fuerteventura

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:34:12 +0000

Fuerteventura, one of the Canary Islands, has become a very popular destination with holidaymakers as it is blessed with excellent weather all year round. Temperatures can reach 35 degrees Celsius and rarely fall below about 20 degrees. It is has the longest sandy beaches of all the seven islands and is also considered to be the oldest.

The island is a surfer’s paradise due to the summer trade winds and winter swells from the Atlantic. Body boarding and windsurfing are also high on the water sports list, with the World Windsurfing Slalom held on the island every year in July/August.

Diving is another popular sport on Fuerteventura activity holidays as the variety of fish that can be seen is truly an awe-inspiring sight. Other marine life you may well encounter can include whales, dolphins, turtles and marlin fish.

Visitors to Fuerteventura can choose from a wide variety of other water sports on offer on the island including jetskiing, banana boat kayaks and snorkelling.

For those who prefer to stay on dry land, mountain biking and hiking are among the options on offer. Thanks to the island’s hilly landscape there are plenty of routes to cross. The interior of the island is made up of volcanic mountains and old lavascapes and much of this area is protected. The best way to explore here is either by 4×4 or, if you are more daring, with a cross-country motorbike on one of the organised guided tours of the island.

The top resorts on Lanzarote

admin — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 01:25:16 +0000

Lanzarote is the fourth largest of the Canary Islands and lies in the Atlantic around 80 miles away from the northwest African coast. Lanzarote’s unusual volcanic landscape gives it a rugged beauty, and the island is protected as a UNESCO biosphere. It also benefits from restrictions on high-rise developments and buildings. With annual average temperatures hovering at around 21ºC and sandy beaches stretching for miles, Lanzarote attracts tourists to its resorts for the excellent surfing and water sports as well as year-round sunshine and mild, dry climate.

Lanzarote has some established tourist resorts that were once little more than fishing villages. Puerto Del Carmen is the liveliest and biggest resort on the island, and as well as showcasing miles of sandy beaches such as the golden Playa Grande, it plays host to Lanzarote’s famous carnivals. There are clubs and pubs galore here, but the unspoilt old town still has the charm of an old fashioned Spanish village.

Playa Blanca is shaping up to be one of the top resorts on Lanzarote. With a stylish new marina, Marina Rubicon, surrounded by good shops and restaurants and close to some of the island’s best beaches at Papagayo Beach, this is one of Lanzarote’s most upmarket areas with hotels to match.

A smaller resort is Costa Teguise, ideally suited for the family with its pretty sheltered beaches, clear waters and pedestrian-friendly shopping streets and squares. For those who like the quiet life, consider Puerto Calero, a stylish and tranquil resort with gorgeous views and a stunning harbour where the wealthy moor their expensive yachts.

Mallorca’s Unique Cuisine

admin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:12:16 +0000

Real Mallorcan food is hearty and rural in origin based largely on fish, lamb, and pork with generous helpings of fresh vegetables and pulses cooked in olive oil. A popular home-made stock for soups comes from ground almond nuts and can be found as a base for soups, casseroles and Mallorcan sauces.

Mallorca restaurants and taverns that serve a Menu del Dia (Daily Specials) will offer meals that have evolved from, and been influenced by, Moorish and Spanish conquerors all with a Mallorcan twist of course. The best place to note these influences is in the bakery where the ancient Arab dish cocarois remains popular among islanders. Cocarois are small pastries filled with vegetables, raisins and pine nuts. Also at the bakery you can buy Empanadas, these are small pies with lamb and peas.

Mallorcan specials include Lono con col, a pork loin meat parcelled in cabbage leaves and stewed slowly in pine nuts and frito which is a fried dish of peppers, potatoes and offal, usually liver.

When Mallorcans want to celebrate they do so with Lechona, suckling pig slowly roasted in wood fuelled ovens. Another traditional dish is Tumbet, ratatouille Mallorca-style. Other popular local choices include butiffaron sausages and sobrasada a meat paste made of minced pork and red peppers. For a cheap but tasty snack try Sopas Mallorquinas thin slices of brown bread layers with vegetables in a home-made stock and baked.

If you want to taste a unique Mallorcan drink then try Horchata. Horchata is milk; usually almond flavoured and is prepared freshly to order. Horchata is most refreshing on a hot day.

Barcelona Bistros

admin — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 09:53:19 +0000

Barcelona bistros Gresca and Inopia (the latter, a tapas bar, was opened by Ferran Adria’s brother Albert) have much deserved acclaim, but some newer kids on the block are packing diners in, too. Examples abound of what a prominent Catalan journalist has dubbed “bistronomia” — innovative cooking at down-to-earth prices. But standouts include Cinc Sentits, Embat and Hisop. Hisop is a study in black and red, décor-wise, but the kitchen is all about the culinary chemistry between chef-owners Oriol Ivern and Guillem Pla. They bring a healthy serving of imagination to such mainstays as a side of rice (served with baby squid and truffle) and foie gras (with cherries and licorice added); for dessert, who could resist “strawberries, cocoa and roses”?

Another new Barcelona bistro that should be in your little black book is Embat, a small, hip eatery run by two chefs who met while working at Espai Sucre. Décor is surprisingly simple — think single light bulbs covered in bronzy netting to light up a mere ten tables — and tasting menus which, at 38 euros, are surprisingly affordable. Over in the trendy Eixample district, you’ll want to reserve at Cinc Sentis (Catalan for “five senses”), another shining example of the bistronomia phenomenon. The chef sources all the ingredients from Spain, whether that means veal from green Galicia to spring peas from Llavaneres. Tasting menus are de rigueur and change with the market, but expect the likes of Iberian suckling pig with ratafia-glazed apples and honey reduction. For dessert, there are “textures of lemon”—the citrus fruit as cake, ice cream, foam, curd and vodka ice. What’s Catalan for “yum”?

VIP Barcelona

admin — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 09:51:49 +0000

The coolest places in Spain’s hot seaside city. Nestled in Aribau, one of the main thoroughfares of the compact and largely tourist-free Eixample neighborhood, the restaurant “Five Senses” wins praise for its market-based tasting menus that change with the seasons.”Barcelona, posa’t guapa” — “Doll yourself up!” That’s what Barcelona’s city hall advised the denizens of this vibrant Mediterranean city to do in the run-up to the 1992 Summer Olympics. Sixteen years later, they’re still fervently following that characteristically Catalan directive. A distinct yen for experimentation in design — look no further than Antoni Gaudí’s iconic Sagrada Familia, now expected to be completely roofed by 2010 — coupled with a buoyant civic pride make Barcelona fertile ground for creative types and rewarding terrain for the curious traveler.

Design in its myriad forms is a central thread uniting the fabric of this city, which means that one could see things as opposite as Santiago Calatrava’s ethereal Communications Tower atop Montjuïc hill (built for the 1992 Olympics) and Gaudí’s ebullient Parc Güell garden, with its glorious mosaic work and sweeping coastal views, making more sense here than they might somewhere else. And if the over-the-top Palau de la Musica Catalana concert hall of a century ago is a symbol of Catalan creativity, so too is the soon-to-open Terminal B at Barcelona International Airport, which very nearly replicates the gentle blue waves lapping a few hundred meters away.

History of Catalan cuisine

admin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:40:31 +0000

Seven hundred years of history count for a lot… and on the table too. Travel through time in the most flavoursome way.

the first successful cuisine: mediaeval cooking

The first recipes in Latin-derived languages 14th and 15th century are in Catalan, like the so-called Sent Soví. Probably much of the uniqueness of Catalan cuisine comes from the fact that it has managed to bring together, from the basis of its classical and visigoth heritage, the fine influences of Andalusian culture, thus guaranteeing the Mediterranean culture and transmission of oriental treasures.
The Arabs introduced and reintroduced many products to the Iberian peninsular, some of these still play a part in idiosyncratic nature of Catalan food, like rice, spinach, egg plants, lemons, sugar or pasta (fideus), and there was a certain taste for greens, which the philosopher Ramon Llull identified as a source of health, especially taking into account that garden fruits had really undervalued until then by feudal masters. As well,
the presence of fish and other products from the Mediterranean characterised this mediaeval Catalan cuisine. And there were also some exquisite sauces like ginestrada, a cream made with rise, saffron, with the milk of almonds, and costum —exported to a large extent— made by cooking poultry in citric fruits, as well as various dishesdelicately scented with rose water and prohibitive mixes of far off spices.

Remember that ginger arrived much before sushi, or coriander before guacamole, and that galangà came before the Tom Iam soup.
Catalonia shared this way of cooking with, firstly -and in a very special way- Occitània, as it did with serenading, the trobadors and an occasional heretic, and afterwards there were successful contacts with Sicily, Sardinia and the Italian Peninsular.

In the moment when Catalan cuisine was really founded, it already
showed its most characteristic trait: the capacity to incorporate the best of other culinary cultures, that for one or another reason, it had come into contact with. This was not a unique thing; anthropologists have shown that cuisine reflects societies quite clearly. So it is not at all strange that cuisine in Catalonia reflected the spirit of a place that was very much a thoroughfare and place of arrival, preferring to incorporate that than resist other styles.

the fusion of «new» americas products

With time ultramarine products from the Americas were incorporated into Catalan cuisine, which without them today would look very different. For example, sausages and beans (American), Egg plants with peppers (American), Soup of Cauliflower and potatoes (American), and tomato (American)-bread and even our bread and chocolate (American) for an afternoon snack.

Modern times is not especially good —as everyone
knows— for the production of Catalan culture, which
was persecuted and occasionally had to hide even in convents or monasteries. Precisely it was in the
monasteries where many of the recipe books of the time were written, faithful to the mediaeval tradition (there was still a fair mix of sweet
and salty dishes that were so liked in the Middle Ages, for example, but also with the healthy meat restrictions as prescribed by monastery rules. And bit by bit the new incorporations began to bring the makeup of the dishes, despite not losing their character, to current day ones.

Spanish Phrases

admin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:00:31 +0000

Spanish Basic Phrases, Vocabulary and Grammar

Welcome
Bienvenido (sg) Bienvenidos (pl)

Hello
¡Hola!
¿Aló? ¡Bueno! ¡Diga! ¡Dígame! ¡Hola! (on phone)

How are you?

I’m fine, thanks. And you?

¿Cómo está usted? (frm) ¿Cómo estás? (inf)

Bien gracias, ¿y usted? (frm) Bien gracias, ¿y tú? (inf)

Long time no see
¡Cuánto tiempo! ¡Tanto tiempo sin verte!

What’s your name?

My name is …

¿Cómo te llamas? (inf)
¿Cómo se llama Usted? (frm)

Me llamo …, Mi nombre es …

Where are you from?

I’m from …

¿De dónde eres? (inf) ¿De dónde es usted? (frm)

Soy de …

Pleased to meet you
Mucho gusto Encantado

Good morning
Buenos días

Good afternoon/evening
Buenas tardes

Good night/evening
Buenas noches

Goodbye
Adiós, Hasta luego, Hasta la vista, Hasta manaña

Good luck
¡Buena suerte!

Cheers/Good health!
¡Salud!

Have a nice day
¡Que pase un buen día!

Bon appetit
¡Buen provecho! ¡Buen apetito!

Bon voyage
¡Buen viaje!

I don’t understand
No entiendo / No comprendo

Please speak more slowly
Por favor hable más despacio

Please write it down
¿Puede escribirlo, por favor?

Do you speak Spanish?

Yes, a little

¿Habla usted español? (frm) ¿Hablas español? (inf)

Sí, hablo un poquito de español, Sí, un poco

How do you say … in Spanish?
¿Cómo se dice … en español?

Excuse me
¡Perdón! ¡Perdone! ¡Discúlpe!

How much is this?
¿Cuánto cuesta? ¿Cuánto cuesta esto?

Sorry
¡Perdón! ¡Perdone! ¡Lo siento!

Thank you
Response (You’re welcome)
Gracias / Muchas gracias

De nada / No hay de qué

Where’s the toilet?
¿Dónde están los aseos
¿Dónde están los sanitarios?
¿Dónde está el baño?
¿Dónde está el cuarto de baño?

This gentleman/lady
will pay for everything
Este hombre/caballero pagará por todo
Esta mujer/dame pagará por todo

Would you like to
dance with me?
¿Querria bailar conmigo? (frm)
¿Querrías bailar conmigo? (inf)
¿Quisiera bailar conmigo? (frm)
¿Quisieras bailar conmigo? (inf)

I love you
Te amo / Te quiero

Get well soon
Que te mejores / Que te mejores pronto
¡Recupérate pronto! Pronta recuperación

Leave me alone!
¡Déjeme en paz!

Help!
Fire!
Stop!
¡Ayúdame! ¡Socorro!
¡Fuego!
¡Alto!

Call the police!
¡Llame a la policía!

Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year
¡Feliz Navidad y próspero año nuevo!

Happy Easter
¡Felices Pascuas!

Happy Birthday
¡Feliz cumpleaños!

One language is never enough
Una lengua nunca es suficiente

My hovercraft is full of eels
Mi aerodeslizador está lleno de anguilas

I Missed You So Much!
Te Extraño Mucho!

What’s New?
Qué Hay De Nuevo?

How Are You?
Cómo Estás?

I’m Fine, Thanks!
Estoy Bíen ¡Gracias!

And You?
Y Tú?

Good/ So-So.
Bíen/ Más o menos

Thank You (Very Much)!
(Muchas) Gracias!

Spanish Kitchen

admin — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:28:43 +0000

Now that I am, regretfully, packing up my kitchen in Barcelona, it seemed timely to expound on the indispensible items presumably (from my sporadic research) to be found in the arsenal of a Spanish home cook.
Many of these items can be found in the U.S. (try Trader Joe’s) but of course, never in the variety, quantity, or at the low, low price for which they can be had in Spain. Some of my nominated essentials have never crossed my threshhold here, either, although most have…
For me, whether or not I return to Barcelona, the combination of these peculiarly Spanish foodstuffs will always evoke old, smoke-filled bars where I’ve tasted the best (and worst) of tapas offerings; languid evenings at tables in Medieval squares with cathedral doors and cobblestones for a backdrop; and good friends, good conversation all washed down with endless and excellent bottles of good Spanish vino tinto.
1. Olive oil, first and foremost. By the gallon. Ordinary olive oil for frying and sauteeing, and extra virgin for drizzling on salads and bread. Optional but highly desirable: one of the lovely handblown glass cruets, as shown above, that always stands at the ready next to my stove.
2. Garlic. With just about everything. Rubbed raw on lightly grilled, crusty bread that is then smeared with half of a ripe, red tomato and a good drizzle of olive oil – sometimes to accompany a meal or tapas, other times as the foundation for a bocadillo – Spanish-style sandwich, almost always made with a baguette – of jamon serrano, cheese, salami, or tortilla, the Spanish omelet made with potato and onion.
3. Paprika (pimenton): comes in at least three varieties, mild (sweet), spicy, and smoked. Used liberally in Spanish cooking. The smoked version imparts an indescribable depth to dishes.
4. Olives. My favorite are the fat, green, aromatic manzanilla, but there are many varieties, green and black, oil-cured or in vinegar, with herbs, peppercorns, stuffed with anchovy…to my tastes, good hearty Spanish bread, a semi-aged manchego cheese, a dish of olives and a glass of good table wine are the holy quartet of Spanish gusto and can always be relied upon to sate the sudden onset of peckishness. A close relative is the olive paste, usually from the ripe black olives, which I have discovered is heavenly when spread on a crusty, charcoal-grilled hamburger.
5. Saffron. Flavors stews, soups, and of course, Spain’s most famous culinary export, paella.

6. Jamon serrano, the famous cured ham of Spain. Comes in varying quality, with the most expensive – the jabugo, pato negro – costing up to 200 euros per kilo or more. It is lean, low in salt, utterly delicious, and ubiquitous. Sadly, it cannot be exported, I understand. Whole legs of these prized hogs hang behind nearly every bar in Spain, and many families buy an entire ham, taking paper-thin slices as needed; there is even a special culinary device to hold the ham in place to be sliced.

7. Bread. No Spaniard will sit down to a meal without loaves or slices of fresh bread bought that morning, or very commonly, both that morning and evening. Bread is sufficiently indispensible here that even on Sundays, when all the supermarkets and shops are closed, every panaderia in town will be open until at least 1 p.m. A Spanish barra (long, thin loaf) comes in many varieties, from a French-style baguette (called by the same name here) to my favorite, the gallega – a long, thin oval with a durable crumb and a rich, fermented flavor that stays fresh until the next day – to cracked or whole wheat, seeded, even rye. Good bread here is a birthright. I will miss it.

8. Tempranillo, quince paste: a sweet, vitamin-C-packed firm jelly that is exquisite with either an aged manchego cheese or a slice of jamon.

9. Asparagus. Bottled. Fat, thin, white, green, a multitude of varieties and brands can take up an entire three-foot section of supermarket shelving, top to bottom. I can’t say why the Spanish are so crazy for bottled asparagus – they also love their bottled and canned wild mushrooms, precooked beans, corn, and green beans – but once in a while, it’s nice, chilled, with mayonnaise liberally seasoned with freshly cracked black pepper. By the way, the Spanish assert that mayonnaise, that quintessential French preparation, actually originated in the Balearic Islands, not far off the Barcelona coast, in the town of Mahon. It has a ring of truth.

10. Aioli, or allioli in Catalan, means ‘garlic and oil.’ It’s essentially a thick mayonnaise fortified with industrial-strength amounts of fresh garlic. Spread it on grilled breads or meats, stir a spoonful into a hearty soup, or dip your french-fried potatoes in it. Just don’t breathe on anyone for the next 24 hours unless they’ve shared your meal.

11. Last, but never least: wine. I don’t pretend to know much about wine, although I’ve tasted some incredibly complex, deep and well-constructed Spanish vino tinto. But give me a good table wine for every day, and I’m perfectly happy. There is an amazing abundance of wine in Spain, much of it very drinkable and cheap. I’m talking under 5 euros per bottle – in fact, in my local supermarket, any wine 6 euros or over has an anti-theft device attached to its neck. I even found a very drinkable house-brand rosado (rose) at one supermarket chain for the unbelievable bottle price of 75 centimos! If this could be duplicated in the U.S., it would put Two-Buck Chuck out of business.

This is a random and woefully incomplete list. If you want to know more, come to Spain and find out why its cuisine and wine and gastronomical bounty are beginning to conquer the world of food. Originally: A few good things no respectable Spanish kitchen would be without Images: Justin Metz and markeveleigh

Santa Maria Del Mar

admin — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:55:07 +0000

The first documentary reference we find to the church of Santa Maria del Mar is in a text from the year 998. This basilica is the work of the architect Berenguer de Montagut, and the first stone was laid to commemorate the conquest of Sardinia, which completed the Catalan domination in the Mediterranean initiated ten years earlier with the conquest of Mallorca, and which reached its fullest extent with the entry of Sicily and Greece into the domains of the House of Barcelona.

Externally, it is the only perfectly-finished Catalan Gothic church. Its outer walls display the features which differentiate Catalan Gothic from European.

In the Catalan style, there is a predominance of horizontal lines, of solid panels over empty spaces, of flat terraces without roofs, and a preference for large bare surfaces. The buttresses are swithout flying buttresses as in the European Gothic cathedrals, and the towers are octagonal and flat-topped.

The interior of the church is of an extraordinary beauty and has exceptional acoustic conditions that make it an ideal space for concerts, usually of classical and Oriental music but occasionally of jazz.