Que es Cava? Or at least that’s what I asked myself before today…Today was the first of our planned excursions (aka does not cost extra money). We had to wake up early (8am) and make our way to a horse statue at a plaza. I decided that we met there because it is easy to find, close to a metro and the only plaza big enough for a bus to pull over but small enough to find everyone…anyways, walking over there I realized just how small Barcelona is. This is mostly because the central location of my school is basically smack in the center of it all. We met there for our private charter bus. Then we drove south. The Spanish highway system looks just like an American one. With one notable exception—more roundabouts.
Cavas is a sparkling wine and evidently goes with every meal. The Cavas we toured were the largest in the world, according to the brochure. I learned two notable facts about making Cava:
1. The color of the grape does not determine the color of the wine. If you want red wine, you leave the skin in. If you want white you peel them.
2. There is sediment in a fully fermented wine. This is about an inch deep in the neck of the bottle and must be removed before the bottle is sold.
The rest of the tour I didn’t really listen to, mostly because I was too busy either a. taking pictures or b. trying to calculate how many millions of bottles were located there. (And failing miserably, I might add—too many zeroes). So here is a sampling of my artsy vineyard pictures…
The outside of the Cavas, also designed by a fancy art nevou architect, so it's also historical.
The Cava testing room. Salud!
How they used to do it...
The Cava tasting was at about 10am, which does not sit well with my stomach. I’m not much of a drinker so I had about a cm of Cava and passed it on to more eager classmates. Ugh. Or maybe it was the crackers that tasted as if each one contained an entire stick of butter… But I love my pictures from this, so I would say it was a success! Also we had a train ride…underground…which was awesome!!!
After the Cava tour we went to a little seaside town named Sitges. I found my first chai here since I’ve been in Spain. Mango Chai Frappe with whipped cream. Mmmm….Delicious. Then we did a short walking tour which was mostly just wandering and looking at all of the shops. I bought a wonderful present for Erin, Erica and Johnny here! Finally, we played a version of Tips/Monkey in the Middle with about 10 of us in the water. It was very fun! The beach must have been too much fun, because we all passed out on the bus back home. Then I wandered some before heading home to do a little research for my individual trips. An excellent day!
The beach of Sitges.
The streets of Sitges.
The doorways of Sitges? Are you sensing a theme?
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