We reached the hotel in Barcelona at 5 p.m., after a four-hour journey from southern France.

With air travel back to Abu Dhabi in the morning.

What to do in, say, six hours in one of Europe’s most interesting cities?

Simple: La Rambla, tapas and sangria.

It’s been nearly 20 years since I visited Barcelona. I covered the 1992 Summer Olympics here, and I liked Barcelona fine. It was a good Olympics, with memorable Opening Ceremonies (sea battles in the Olympic Stadium, a flaming arrow to light the cauldron) and the Dream Team (perhaps best remembered in the U.S.) highlighting the competition side of things.

I managed to find the time to cover an afternoon of bull fighting at the Plaza Monumental de Toros, and write about it, and it certainly is something I remember well.

I was here for about an hour last week, after landing from Doha, but that was just enough time to rent a car and power north into France.

We left France this afternoon, and are staying one night in Barcelona ahead of our trip back to the Gulf in the morning, and it seemed obvious what we needed to do.

We took a regional train (sort of like the RER around Paris) which got us to the Passeig de Gracia near the heart of the city in a matter of minutes. We found our way over to the pedestrian part of the city, and bought some ceramics at a craft fairand began walking down La Rambla, the 1.2-kilometre path down to the Columbus statue near the waterfront.

When I was here in 1992, I spent my final night (the day after the Olympics ended) sponging up sangria and eating, I think, paella.

This time, we wandered into the Gothic quarter (La Rambla having grown a bit seedy, especially in the area near the port) and found a tapas restaurant near an ancient church. The place was called Taller Tapas, and we sat out on the patio, pleased as we were that the night was only chilly, not cold, without the gusting winds that had been characteristic of our days in France.

We ordered sangria, which comes iced, of course. It perhaps was not a particularly wise decision given the “outdoors” setting, but you pretty much have to order a pitcher of sangria when you’re eating tapas. Especially in Barcelona.

The tapas we ordered: Fried baby squid, cod fritters, grilled asparagus, shaved artichokes, chorizo, chicken skewers and tomato bread.

Very nice. A bit salty, perhaps, and the food didn’t stay warm long, outside, but it was plenty of food of the sort we’re not going to beating in Abu Dhabi, and the sangria was wonderful.

We eavesdropped on some tourists conversing, and took note of what stylish young Catalan women are wearing at the end of the winter (short skirts, black tights, boots), and smiled at the young people doing what they do on a Friday night in a great city.

We got a cab back to the hotel, near the airport, and made a mental note to come back when we could see more than one Gaudi building (the one near the Placa de Catalunya), which means a stay a bit more than six hours, anyway.

Back to the UAE, via Doha, in the morning. Inshallah.