Day 37 Chocolate factory, cava winery & Montserrat

After my appalling night I vowed to find a hotel for tonight and that's what I did at breakfast. Then I picked up my rental car (a tiny midget car called a Smartfortwo).

I headed out of town to the Simon Coll chocolate factory. I could smell it walking along the street & it smelled amazing. Then I went a few blocks away to the Freixenet cava winery. Cava is the Spanish version of champagne. It turns out that this winery is bigger than Moet! They can store 140 million bottles! I have heard of this stuff but never tried it. We did the tour and saw how they make it. Interestingly they use the French method. The only difference is the type of grapes they use. We went for a tasting and had the Brut nature & Elysee reserve. Both were very good. And according to Dan Murphy's they are cheap for imported wine! $10-17 a bottle, depending on the variety. I bought a bottle of the Ice Rosa (sweet sparkling rose) to drink tonight.

Next I headed to Montserrat, a mountain top monastery. It was quite cold by the time I got there. I went to enquire about the funiculars to the top of the maintain to go to the good lookouts but was told they are not working until March. You can hike, she says, but it's 1.5hrs! Pass! I literally only went for the views as this is what I knew it for and the only things you can see without hiking are a museum & church. I left not long after and headed back to Barcelona.

I went back to the hostel, packed, checked out and went to find my hotel. I paid good money for a good sleep tonight so I hope this hotel meets my expectations! I went out and found a place that serves paella to single people and had some dinner. It was good paella (chicken not seafood) although I heard the hotel receptionist telling a guy checking in that the paella around here is 'tourist paella' and if he wanted a real one he had to go to the port.

After dinner I had booked a ticket to a flamenco show. Just a short 30min show with a discount coupon. Well I clearly had the wrong impression of what flamenco dancing is! The singing sounded very Arabic to me & the dancing was mostly tap dancing. I was expecting those big can can coloured skirts and that type of dancing & singing! It was good though. Each type of dance obviously tells a story although they didn't explain the dancing to us.

Then I went back to my hotel as I had a date with my bath! Right now I'm laying in a warm bubble bath, drinking my cava, eating a block of bubbly caramello Milka chocolate writing this. After last night this is exactly what I need.

Tomorrow I head to the airport and fly to Madrid. I have 2 days there before I go to Dubai on Monday night. Can you believe it's been almost 5.5 weeks? It's Friday here. In exactly 7 days I begin my long trip home. This second half of my trip has gone soooo fast! I wish I was back in the arctic though. I really loved those places! I will move to Iceland, Finland and Norway in a heartbeat. Just need lots of money & a brilliant niche hotel idea to build!