Lunch on La Ramblas and tapas on the beach

John Springman
Mar 26, 2016
2 min read

We decided, against good advice, the have lunch on La Ramblas. The advice was that the food was overpriced and not the best quality. That is true. The atmosphere is what you pay for on La Ramblas. You are seated in front of a parade of international travelers, so the people watching can't be any better. So we decided to do it, against advice. There was a sign out front that said your choice of spaghetti, pizza, or paella, plus three tapas (hors d'oevures), for $8.95. That sounded like a great deal. The maitra d' told us the deal was over, but that he would make sure we got it anyway..so we went ahead and ordered. We splurged and bought sodas for everyone (our big mistake), and we ordered two of the "deals" and one extra tapa for the four of us. The food was OK, but we have had much better in Barcelona. The atmosphere was great..the sun was shining, and the people were parading up and down in front of us for two hours. Then the bill arrived. It was $51.00. They charged us $6.50 each for the sodas. Gotcha! But it was almost worth it anyway.

We had a similar experience in a restaurant near the beach, where we ordered 3 sodas and a couple of tapas and the bill came to almost $40.00, but the atmosphere...on the beach... was almost worth it. We sat in the comfort of the enclosed patio and watched Ellie as she used her metal detector to find treasure for about three hours. I consider that pretty good rent for the spot, and the sodas and tapas were just icing on the cake.