Tourists travelling to Barcelona don’t want to lay at the beach all day long; instead, they want to learn more about the city and its Catalan culture. An alternative to traditional guided tours through Barcelona is a food-tour. You are visiting several bars and experience the country through tasting different dishes typical for the country.
Since we are open to new dishes and since we hadn’t known much about Barcelona, we decided to participate in a tapas tour. The tour carried out by Tapas Tours Barcelona started at the Plaza de l’Angel on Saturday at 5 pm. Tourists using public transport can leave the subway at the station dircetly located at the square. We arrived by car, for which we had to find an appropriate parking place. Unfortunately, Barcelona isn’t a car-friendly city, so we had to park inside an expensive underground car park (12 EUR for less than four hours). The only advantage was the short distance to the starting point 😉
We were 13 persons who took part in the tapas tour, one half Germans, the other half Britains.The first of four stops was a delicatessen in the Gothic district where we ate cheese, salami, the typical Pa amb Tomaquet (white breat with Arbequine olive oil and rubbing tomatos), olive pâté, and regional wine. All products could be bought in the shop afterwards. The next bar, a so-called sidreria, was some hundred meters away and we walked through narrow alleys of Barcelona. There, we could taste sidra, a Spanish cider whose taste is completely different to the ones from our German sidras. It is poured from high above in order to mix it with fresh air. Apart from the sidra, we ate pinchos that are in contrast to tapas skewered small bits of food with white bread. In the bar Bilbao Berria, more than 20 different pinchos were available and we were allowed to taste two – so you can imagine how difficult the choice was. Bilbao Berria was our favorite stop and we decided to revisit it the next day. Unfortunately, it was completely full and we had to look for an alternative…
Stop number 3 was a tapas bar where all tapas were presented around the bar. Eating tapas in the right way means that everyone gets a fork and eats from different big plates that are standing in the middle of the table. We had the following tapas: Patatas Bravas (potatoes with tomato sauce), green paprika, octupus, roast mushrooms and fish croquettes. Since I don’t like fish, I’ve chosen the vegetarian variant. Matthias tried the fish specialities and liked them. In a jiffy, the plates and wine glasses were empty and we set off to the last bar for today.
The final bar was not just an old bar with a real local flavour, but it was the oldest tapas bar of Barcelona (about 80 years old). Several years ago, more than ten different tapas bars were located in the Carrer Merced. Today the bar La Plata is the only witness of a bygone tapas culture. It offered pescaditos (fried sardines) as speciality. For me not being a fish fan, a Spanish sausage was presented which was similiar to Thuringian bratwurst. The two hours tour passed quickly and we finally took a giant selfie of our group for remembering the interesting evening.
We enjoyed the tapas tour through the old town of Barcelona: we discovered areas, we would never have discovered without our guide. Apart from learning more about the Catalan cuisine, we got interesting information about Barcelona itself. I can recommend this experience to everyone. A propos: The tour always takes place on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 5 pm and costs 39 EUR p.p.
Wunderschöne Fotos!