Barcelona - on Tapa the world!

We’ve reached our final stop, and Bec and I both keep making ultimate statements. 

“Well, last cappuccino in Europe I guess. Bummer.”

“Last time with a good view ever I guess.” 

“Welp, last time I’ll ever eat in a foreign country, greatttt.”

“Ugh, last time I’ll ever get to step in dog urine on Las Ramblas until maybe tomorrow or later today.” 

We are sad to head out, but Barcelona was a fantastic, fun, romantic, and unique way to close it out. 

My last time in Barcelona was slightly less romantic but also wild fun. Six years ago, I spent it with my animalistic buddy and prominent blog character Augusto. He completely emptied the entire city’s supply of tapas before annihilating Club Opium’s dance floor until 5 a.m., and sleeping until 5 p.m. 

This trip, we were working with half as much time, and twice as much maturity (Becca, not me). So we took my patented Smashmouth Tourism to the next level to attempt to get Becca the full experience. We ended up clocking in 13 miles and >34,000 steps in our full day. I exaggerate a lot, those numbers are not.

There are several things that have remained true about Barcelona, and might forever:

1. Sagrada Familia, the most intricate church in the world, is still very much under construction, and has been since 1882.
2. The afternoon is still break time. So is the morning. Nighttime is go time. This has got to be the reason Sagrada Familia is still under construction after a century, and the reason some coffee shops don’t open until after 9 a.m., and the reason the weather reports aren’t accurate until after 10 a.m. (Um, it rained with a 0% chance of rain one morning??), and is definitely the reason dinner is at ~10 p.m. unless you’re a tourist.
3. The place still feels like a crazy carnival-themed party. The streets are always packed with peddlers selling anything from keychains to light up helicopter toys to beers from a bag to, well, drugs. There are musicians along every major street, as well as costumed statue people asking for money to do something weird. All the while, you cruise past the artistic architecture, including several inspired by Gaudi’s whimsical ways in addition to every shop door covered in cartoonish graffiti and wonder if you’re a) in a funhouse or b) had a tapa laced with some of the street peddler’s drugs.

0% chance. Pouring rain. Weatherman definitely hadn't started work yet.

One of these drug dealers on the central promenade asked Bec if she wanted some weed, to which she responded quite innocently, “Oh no thank you!” The dealer, instead of following up with another insistent question or comment, fell silent with confusion, I assume, not expecting to be turned down with a polite “thank you” attached. 

In our 40 hours, we took on the following:

• 2 of the largest churches on earth: Cathedral de Barcelona and Sagrada Familia 
• A combined 23 different Tapas (Tasquetas de Blai Bar = wow). The return of Patatas Bravas and Croquettes into my life was one of the happier times of the whole trip.
• 2 cups of fresh squeezed juice and 3 cups of fruit salads from the Boqueria market along Ramblas
• 23 miles of walking
• 1 Castle (Montjuic) toured
• 6 Gaudi designed or inspired buildings including Casa Battlo, Casa Miro, and 1 fantastic sunset from atop Park Guell, all of which are uber-weird and would make me hate him as a neighbor, but are a blast to look at for foreigners. 
• A combined 5 cappuccinos and 3 Cafe al llete (sp? Coffee with milk) that totaled 8 ounces, and 1 ~75 ounce coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts. Becca wanted a big coffee so she turned to America for help. Unlikely one of the Spanish locals’ favorite spots, except for those craving glazed donuts plastered in oreos and kit kats after their night clubbing. 

Here's a photographic Tour de Barca to prove it

Me in poor spanish: "Que animal es este?"
Butcher gal: "Cordero...baby lamb."
Becca: "BABY LAMB?!!"
Butcher gal: "Not dog though. Lamb"
Me: "See Bec? Not a dog! Just a lamb face."

Gorgeous array of mystery meats and organs at la Boqueria market

Cathedral is DEFINITELY a cathedral 

Sagrada familia now has baskets of fruits atop it for unclear reasons, but beautiful!

Praying for completion before year 3000

"Pedrero"

Casa Battlo 

Neighbor: "Is this really necessary?"

Castell Montjuic gardens

Becca handling what appears to be a circus gun that shoots human cannonballs out

Montjuic is gorgeous now, but had actually been used for torture, executions, and even firing cannons down on  Barcelona to subdue rebellions. Rough past, glorious future.

View of the quaint Spanish town of Barcelona from atop Montjuic

A sample of our sample of tapas. Mouth currently watering.

Park Guell views

You're not on drugs, you're in Barcelona

Park Guell's gingerbread-esque fun houses, a.k.a. Museums

Arc de Triomf, honoring our triumph over the town.

We put up some gaudy numbers in Gaudi’s city, but what about the trip overall?

 Per Becca’s iPhone Health app, we turned in the following stats with our two now-battered legs since we departed from Omaha on May 14th (about 16.5 days) — makes me regret my double digit total of gelatos a little less:

1. Total Miles walked: 163.0. Average of about 10 miles per day.
2. Highest mileage walked in 1 day: 13. The Barca Half Maratho Smashmouth Tourism Special.
3. Lowest Mileage in 1 (full) day: 7.2 miles. We had a 5-hour bus ride and Dubrovnik’s beaches were prettttty tough to leave.  
4. Total Steps: 422,721
5. Highest amount of steps walked, one day: 34,386. American Heart Association recommends 10,000 per day. 
6. Lowest amount of steps walked, one (full) day: 17,837. Those waters of Dubrovnik though. 
7. Floors climbed, 16.5-day total: 857. That’s equivalent to climbing the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere, New York’s new Freedom Tower, about 5 times. Or a 10-foot skyscraper about 857 times.
8. Floors climbed, 1 day: 220. Il Dom hike, Triglav National Park, Slovenia. Still mad the Beef Soup at the top was just noodles, no beef.
9. Floors climbed, 1 day low: 12. Vienna is pretty flat. 

We are so thankful. Thankful our legs were ok with us doing that to them. I’m so thankful to have a wife that loves working out probably as much as she loves me and was also willing to just keep walking literally everywhere. Thankful for my crippling debt to make me want to avoid taking cabs at all costs. And, of course, we are thankful to all our readers, and most especially our families for helping make another unforgettable experience possible. 

Bye bye Barca - until next time! 

Dubrovnik - the One True King

We’ve been resisting saying this. It feels too ultimate and extreme, but after three days it’s as clear as the Adriatic Sea: we’ve found the (new) best city in all of Europe. According to...us. Becca has said this about every city we’ve ever been to, yes, but this one is more real. Dubrovnik has usurped big hitters like Rome, Prague, Paris, and Vienna at the top of our Power Rankings, and deservingly so. 

reason 1 it's the best

Reason 10ish

Old City, new glory

Coming from Split, where the transportation is equivalent to a guessing game and a game of life or death every day, we were expecting some similar frustrations. But given that Dubrovnik is just as old of a Dalmatian Coast city, we assumed that about 1500 years was enough time to work out the kinks and form a more efficient system. We were sort of right. Similar to Split, Dubrovnik’s bus times are listed as the time it leaves the first stop. This means you get the rare opportunity to use high school trigonometry to attempt to triangulate when the bus would hypothetically arrive at your stop along the route. Luckily, Creighton Prep prepped me well, and I was almost right most of the time. But what I could not have been prepped for was the following: 1) a bus breaking down on the highway, leaving the driver cursing and jamming the shifter back and forth like a father that’s pissed at his stupid broken lawn mower, and us walking, and 2) Our bus stop location about 130 feet below our mountainside apartment in Nuncijiate, according to our Health App’s “floors climbed”. The views will be great, they told us. 

“Morning Bec…dear GOD why are my hips so sore???” was the first exchange of each morning. 

See the one at the top? Like...the top top? Ours.

It’s not often you get to hike a mountain within a city, walk white marble streets within thousand-year-old walls, walk on top of the walls themselves, and jump from cliffs into a sea, so we made sure to do all those in a day. For three days. Dubrovnik is incredible like that, and we absolutely laid siege to the tourist sights. Not literally. I shouldn’t use those words, as Dubrovnik has indeed been sieged several times in the past, including in 1991’s Homeland War by Yugoslovia, Serbia and Montenegro aggressions, as well as 2018 by tourist armies armed with selfie sticks that know no limitations and will sacrifice anything in their path for a decent picture. This, of course, is the one negative of Dubrovnik. It’s a main tourist hub and cruise stop, and can be overrun with rabid vacationers if your timing is poor. 

Thanks to our 3-day Dubrovnik Cards, our adaptable itinerary went something like:

Day 1: wander through Old City, walk the 2 km city walls, relentlessly people watch, Presa for cheap deliciousness for lunch, Ala Mezerija for cheap deliciousness with a view for dinner, climb to Fort Lovrijenac, hike up Gradac Park for sunset

Rector's Palace (Rector?! Just met her!)

Dubrovnik truly provides a taste of King's Landing

Wall of fame

Add caption <-- site assumes there are words to describe this  view

view from Ala Mezerija oh my 

Also viewed from Ala Mezerija...a local Croat in a speedo smoking while doing backstroke.

Croatian sunset pics are easy to edit. You just take the picture and then that's it

Day 2: Climb Mount Srd, cappuccinos back at Ala Mezerija because it’s that beautiful, wander through Old City, Maritime Museum, Marin Drzic Museum even though it’s still confusing what he actually was, get to a Buza Bar (bar built into the cliffs and city walls) to swim and cleanse the perpetual lather of sweat that is at this point starting to mount, Banje Beach next to the walls to swim again, Cave Bar More for sunset and just to go to a bar that’s in a cave, Barba for Octopus Burger dinner (don’t ask questions, it’s perfect.)

Buza Bar bathing

Day 3: wander through Old City, Natural History Museum, ferry to Lokrum Island (a.k.a. Qarth for Game of Thrones fans). Here, you can wander aimlessly yet happily about the island, stumble upon some caves and peacocks and sweat out pure olive oil and take refuge by diving in the most pure water we’ve seen since we left the shores of the Mighty Missouri. End with beers at Ohran in the bay (a.k.a. King’s Landing Harbor AND a.k.a. Blackwater Bay - filmed from different locations in bay FUN FACT) and pizza from one of a hundred pizza joints within the walls. 

I like living on the edge except when we almost walk off it when discovering caves on Lokrum  Island

But it did look like this below

clear as a bath tub, except you share it with others and boats and such

Day 3.5: wander around the city port near the bus station, start to investigate how to live here permanently. Lots of wandering and wondering.  

Throughout: gawk at the incredible architecture, try and close jaw after mountainside views and any views of the walls, enjoy the Game of Thrones filming sites, mimic all scenes necessary at Game of Thrones filming sites (answer to your next question: Yes it’s always necessary), take pictures quickly at big sites and skillfully dodge impending tourist stampedes as they are the biggest threat to your life in the city other than the impending war with White Walkers obviously (just 1 year ’til the final season!), ice hips nightly and pre-order daily Thai massages for return. 

Pretty sad I didn't get to be in this one guys..

..so I took my own

Is this the most legendary selfie stick of all time? Obviously yes

Bec completing the Shame Walk to the Red Keep

A veteran tip we picked up: use being a lost idiot to your advantage. For example - those Game of Thrones facts? Poached those for free by staring at my Google maps in a confused manner as I meandered around uncomfortably close and in sync behind a Game of Thrones tour. A separate time I pulled out my paper map the size of the Dead Sea Scrolls and snagged some facts from a private walking tour — did you know red coral is found at tremendous depths of the Adriatic which increases its value, and was worn as a status symbol hundreds of years ago because of the bright red? Aristocrats wore brighter colors, like red, peasants wore black or gray. This draws obvious parallels to the Huskers wearing red, and the Iowa Hawkeyes wearing black. Just a status thing, sorry guys. Go Big Red. 

All in all, Dubrovnik is one of the most beautiful, fascinating, variable, unique places on earth, and it has something for everyone. The Adriatic is pristine for the swimmers. The coastline is a jagged mountain range —perfect for hikers or extreme cliff divers that all appear to be clinically insane at a minimum. The city is encapsulated by walls - perfect for history lovers and some of the slightly more insane cliff divers. There are over a thousand islands off Croatia’s coast - perfect for Yacht owners and anyone else I probably wouldn’t like, as well as us middle-class folk just looking to relax. 

Although the classic “pictures don’t do it justice” cliche certainly applies here, I’m going to throw our photography skills at you anyways. See you soon, Barcelona.