Ramblings from Las Ramblas

This week me and the boss celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary with a three-night stay in a five-star hotel in the middle of Barcelona.

Just the two of us. With no kids. And absolutely no moaning.

We got up when we felt like it and ate a leisurely breakfast of eggs cooked to order, smoked salmon, pastries, the freshest fruit and drank pure, freshly squeezed orange juice that tasted like the elixir of everlasting youth.

Then we hopped on and hopped off an open-topped bus and saw all of Barcelona in about four hours, including Gaudi’s astonishing temple of light masterpiece the Sagrada Familia, Arc de Triomf, Anella Olimpica (scene of the magnificent 1992 Olympics but by 21st century standards the stadium itself looks quaint, modest and homely) and the cavernous bullring 100,000 capacity Camp Nou, where Lionel Messi and 10 others hand out humiliating beatings at will for FC Barcelona.

After all that, we were thirsty. So we stopped at a pavement cafe and had a beer in the glorious sunshine at 4.30pm on a Tuesday, just because we could.

Then we went for tapas, and ate food like olives, asparagus, salted peppers, chicken teriyaki and loads of other stuff our kids would curl their lip at, all washed down with a bottle of wine, then we had a cheeky gin and tonic in the hotel bar followed by an even cheekier San Miguel at a pavement cafe.

Outside. In early April. At 10.30pm. And we didn’t die of exposure, get frostbite and our lips didn’t turn blue from hypothermia.

And we walked for miles and miles around Barcelona, on average about 10 a day, often in no particular direction whatsoever, seeing as how the boss (wonderful woman, light of my life, etc.) has absolutely no sense of direction whatsoever. Put it this way, thank God for GPS, the map app on iPhones, that little blue dot that follows you about and the fact data roaming charges have been scrapped. It saved a lot of arguments. Not even the boss can win a row with GPS.