Recently we went on a foodie crawl around Barcelona.  We arrived in the middle of  a torrential downpour, the skinflint in me was annoyed at paying over 7 Euros for a two minute taxi ride round the corner to our hotel but there was a serious possibility of being washed away.

The sun shone through the next morning, so off we went to explore. We were excited to find stall-holders setting up for the 7th annual Medieval Fair of “Creu Coberta” near Plaza Espanya. We spent a few hours tasting our way around the streets packed full of goodies.

One of the most endearing things that we fell upon was the table of about 40 local women doing crochet or lace work en masse – like a Women’s Institute street party  – ‘Ready, Steady, Crochet!’. Locals would wander around offering friendly advice and probably not so helpful tips – these women were experts.

We enjoyed tasting morsels of artisan cheeses, olives, rustic sourdough bread and a large selection of local spicy sausages – what a foodie paradise.

As we didn’t have breakfast in the hotel we deserved a feast for lunch and this we did well at the medieval banquet. I have never seen such a large BBQ temptingly stuffed with pork ribs, squid and spicy Catalan sausages; whole ham hocks were also boiling in a massive vat. We went off happily with our plate of finger-licking succulent ribs to share, potentially fiery Padron peppers and a bottle of young white wine to be slurped from ceramic cups in true Henry 8th style.

Is it time for tapas yet?!