El Casal, Barcelona - Fresh and French

Shockingly, we ate at a place that wasn't a festival burger stand or our favourite cheap neighbourhood tapas bar, Bitácora, today.



On the recommendation of some friends, we visited a French bistro called El Casal, which hides away in the most touristy bit of El Barrio Gótico. The staff are French, there are lots of books everywhere and the place is a bit like what Shakespeare and Company might be like if they had a kitchen in the middle of the shop, There I ate the best salad I have had in a long while (not just because every molecule in me had been crying out for plants to eat) and everyone else ordered what they thought was tapas but came as a filling in massive hunks of bread.


They also do a day menu there which I want to try next time, which was several courses and cost about 10 Euros. Go visit if you are in the busy part of town and need to refuel for cheap.

Primavera Sound 2013 - And there was music!

Another May, another hedonistic two weeks in Barcelona for Primavera Sound festival.  This is my third year visiting the festival, my boyfriend loves his music with the fire of a thousand suns and Parc Del Forum in the last week of May is his spiritual happy place. I lack the encyclopaedic musical knowledge and good sonic judgement but I do like to dance and judge bands.

Goat, Dead Can Dance, The Knife, My Bloody Valentine and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were my stand-outs, my disappointments were Solange and Animal Collective. It was such a packed line-up that we didn’t see most of the headliners  such as Blur and Jesus and Mary Chain etc.

Below the cut are all the bands I saw and a line on what I thought of them. I have plenty more to write about Barcelona and Primavera, but we can do that another time.

WARNING: All opinions are arbitrary and snarky and may be revised at a later date! Snarky but informed views can be found here.