On the Italian Riviera, on a ferryboat, on our way to Montorosso, the last of five charming fishing villages collectively known as Cinque Terre, my wife and I, on our recent 40th wedding anniversary, passed through the Gulf of La Spezia which is famously, and for good reason, nicknamed “The Bay of Poets.”
In addition to Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, Henry James and Virginia Woolf, to name but a handful from a long shelf of celebrated authors who frequented these beautiful coastal lands, Ernest Hemingway wrote about the region in his novel “Across the River and Into the Trees.”
Across the waters circumventing Italy and into Barcelona, this was not our first encounter with Papa Hemingway’s past. In Venice, his fingerprints remain at the Gritti Palace and Harry’s Bar; at sea, heading to Naples, we passed the hamlet of Acciaroli where Papa was believed to have found inspiration for “The Old Man and the Sea”; in Naples, in Rome, in Nice, I was proudly told: “Hemingway spent time here!”
In Barcelona, I decided to search for Hemingway’s footprints – or, rather, his elbow marks on an antique oak bar. “Hemingway Gin & Cocktail Bar” was within walking distance, albeit a rather lengthy stroll, that afforded Lisa and me an opportunity to explore the city en route.
HG&CB would have been easy to miss, and indeed we walked past it once, for its storefront is no more than 10 feet wide with an entrance doorway six steps below street level. Half-hidden as it is, the establishment looks fully posh with gilt signage and a glass door featuring a brass handle polished to a mirror-like shine.
Inside, the dark-wood bar is polished as perfectly as the front door’s handle and runs down the right side of the shotgun layout with forest-green leather-upholstered stools on the drinking side and black lacquer shelves filled with bottles on the serving side. The opposing wall is decorated with black-and-white photographs of Hemingway and also a framed quote by Papa: “Write Drunk, Edit Sober.”
Signature cocktails carry the theme further with names like “The Old Man And The Sea” (gin, vermouth and soda, served in a silver conch shell) and “Hemmy” (vodka, vanilla, liquore al pino and soda, served in a bearded pewter mug of the writer’s likeness).
Alas, Papa never enjoyed a “Hemmy” here for the bar is less than a decade old. Added woe, the elegance was locked behind a copper-colored security gate because it was only noon and patronage hours did not start until 4 p.m.
Less than two miles away, Bar Marsella, established in 1820 as Barcelona’s first bar, promised an authentic echo of Hemingway. Once again, however, it did not open until siesta ended. Adding to our disappointment, we were denied a glimpse inside because the entrance was shrouded by a single-car-wide steel roll-up garage door cloaked in graffiti art. Instead of poshness, it was grittiness; a place to Write Drunk, not Edit Sober.
Next came a silver lining on a cloudy day. Learning that Pablo Picasso as well hung out at Bar Marsalla, we Googled the legendary artist and discovered The Picasso Museum. A 20-minute walk in a pleasantly warm drizzle rewarded us, at last, with an open door – and more than 4,000 of his original paintings, drawings, and ceramics.
As Hemingway’s Santiago says in “The Old Man and the Sea”: “Never have I seen a greater, or more beautiful, or a calmer or more noble thing…” Indeed, the collection was intoxicating.
Next week, as these travel chronicles near an end, some meals to remember.
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.
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