We hit Barcelona like a bunch of college kids on spring break. Like Russian sailors on shore leave. Had we enough time, we all would have gotten tattoos and probably ended up in jail.

(OK, it was more like “seasoned travelers … very seasoned travelers … straggle back into downtown Barcelona the night before the plane home and manage to find a nice time without having to try very hard … before they tire and return to the airport hotel to crash.”)

Actually, we got a lot done. Considering.

We woke up in Nizas, finished packing and were on the road towards Spain a bit after 10. (Yes, we got the deposit back. The third bathroom’s sink was leaking when we got there.)

Two cars, tearing hell-for-leather for Spain despite the pouring rain. (OK, moving along briskly, and darn near the speed limit, on the A9, through occasional rain but mostly mist.)

Barcelona seems very distant from Nizas, in France’s Languedoc, culturally and in terms of lifestyle. But it is not far as the car drives. About 310 kilometers, or about 186 miles — half the distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

We were at the airport hotel in about three hours, and that was with a stop and driving through Barcelona to the airport, south and east of downtown. We were there almost too early to check in.

We returned the rental cars. One was dinged up pretty good, on both mirrors. (Those darn shrinking streets in stone villages!)

Back to the hotel … and time to partay in Barca like it’s 1989!

The cab dropped us off on the Passeig de Gracia, described as “the most expensive street in Barcelona and in Spain”.

We were not interested in the high-end stores like Tiffany and Louis Vuitton and Furla … we just wanted to do tapas and sangria one more time.

We maneuvered through the growing crowds of people who so looked like tourists (as opposed to the four of us) and found a place named Tapas, 24, — which has a fairly good reputation among foodies. But it was crowded, and we would have to wait … so we did what tourists do on the last day of a vacation: We walked back up the street and went to the ultra-commercial, tourist-overrun tapas place — Tapa Tapa.

The plates were cheaper there, and less than remarkable, but they represented reasonable facsimiles of patates bravas and calimari fritas, et al. It was fun to watch “people from all over the world” come in, and buy a beer and take pictures of each other.

The key for us was the sangria. Both pitchers. Unlike the tapas place Divinus we had gone to the week before, which apparently was serving alcohol-free sangria (without advertising it), Tapa Tapa actually had some plonk in that purple juice, and after one pitcher we decided we needed a second, as well as another half-dozen tapas dishes … and we were happy tourists when we tumbled back onto the Passeig de Gracia sidewalk after about 90 minutes. (Would have been less if the service had not been so neglectful.)

Instead of next going for a tattoo, we sought out an ice cream shop, and with Las Ramblas about a 10-minute walk away, an Amorino was not far off.

En route, we saw some goofy people, tourists in large groups, lots of ironic hipsters, even some locals.

We also went past what was some sort of guerilla marketing campaign for a club named La Leche on the Spanish island of Ibiza. Basically, it was some guys in drag, and some others in bottomless chaps, dancing and carrying on, and they did in fact draw a crowd, in the southwest corner of Placa de Catalunya.

So, a buzz, maybe (maybe?) more tapas dishes than we needed, the curious semi-Magic Mike-style street demonstration, ice cream … and we were out.

It may had been 6 p.m., but we left Barcelona on its knees.

And we were all in bed by 9.