We hopped an early morning flight to Barcelona and took the AeroBus to Plaça de Catalunya, the main plaza that starts of Las Ramblas, a huge pedestrian road. Our hotel – Hesperia Ramblas Hotel Barcelona – was a brief walk from the Plaça and less than a block off of Ramblas. On the walk to the hotel I noticed the Mercat de la Boqueria, an incredible farmers’ market on Ramblas just footsteps away from our hotel. My patient husband gladly let me walk the entire market, full of the most incredible looking fruits, olives, legumes, meats, fish – you name it! The market was also the perfect stop for our breakfast or a snack as they had €1 fruit salads a’plenty.
We knew based on our schedule (3.5 days in Barcelona) and the sights we wanted to see that this would be a relaxed trip, so we spent the first afternoon walking down Ramblas, through the marina area near the Columbus monument and wrapped up at Gaudí’s Sagrada Família. This cathedral is an eternal work-in-progress. Gaudí himself worked on the church for 43 years starting in 1883 until his untimely death when he was struck by a streetcar. The book had advised it was still under construction but I wasn’t prepared for just how under construction it would be – lots of cranes, scaffolding and noise. The church just finished its roof and flooring in 2010. I asked my dad what it looked like in 1973 when he visited and he said there was just a front. At least now it’s an enclosed cathedral – they are simply just adding spires to the exterior. In the museum below the church you can see photos and videos showing the evolution of the church and it’s crazy to think how long construction has gone on and how long it will still go on until completion. The hope is that it will be mostly completed in 2026 for the 100th anniversary of Gaudí’s death. The church is surprisingly modern on the inside. Huge tree trunk-like columns spread into branches at the grand ceiling. Beautiful stained glass… a note in the church said that Gaudí had wanted a darker, more reflective church and action is underway to replace most of the clear glass with stained glass. I think this will be a great change as the back half of the church is quite bright. We took the elevator up the Nativity Façade tower and walked the spiral staircase down. I think you are normally able to climb higher but that this was likely closed due to construction. I felt like this part of the cathedral was super touristy – I can’t imagine how cramped the tower could get at the height of tourist season.
The next two days were a shmorgazboard of sight-seeing with a day-trip to Figueres mixed in (described in the next section). We breezed by the Modernista building fronts of the “Block of Discord” including Gaudí’s Casa Milà and Casa Batlló. We walked through the Barri Gòtic neighborhood and toured the Church of Santa Maria del Mar (you can see the influence on Gaudí) in La Ribera. We visited the Picasso Museum, which featured paintings, drawings and sculpture from his early life into his later years. I definitely felt a bad twinge of “what talent like this did I have at age 14?” but we all can’t be Picasso. The museum is void of any “greatest hits” and really any cubist art at all, mainly showing his evolution to cubism and post-cubism work. I enjoyed his interpretations of Velázquez’s Las Meninas, which we saw in Madrid’s Prado and saw several masters interpret across our trip. We also took a long beachside night stroll in Barceloneta, where for a good 20 minutes or so we walked on the boardwalk parallel to an old man walking fully nude on the beach. Not sure what was funnier – this dude walking naked on the beach or people’s reaction to him (we heard a lot of “full moon” jokes). Kev’s best joke was, “You can only say you’re looking for your towel for so long.”
Our final day started at the awesome Parc Güell, a failed master-plan community by Gaudí that is now a huge public park. I had wishful thinking that since the park was removed from the metro center we might have it to ourselves, but this was possibly one of the most touristed sights of the whole trip. We both agreed that they could easily charge admittance. The park was full of whimsy, from stone bridges and walkways to mosaic benches and plazas. We later checked out two more of Barcelona’s markets – Mercat Santa Caterina (near the Cathedral) and Mercat Sant Antoni (under construction but it looks like most vendors are in temporary digs across the street), which brought us through the Raval neighborhood. A quick glance at an early Gaudí building – Palau Güell – and a quick stop at the Cathedral of Barcelona (free during certain times of the day).
We finished the night by taking the funicular up to Montjuïc where we saw the Olympic Stadium (ready for what looked like a monster truck show) and the Magic Fountains. Their 25 min. fountain show was hugely popular and though I gave Kev a hard time, I enjoyed watching it.
I know you can go the foodie/molecular gastronomy/inventive tapas route in Barcelona, but we played it safe. My understanding of eating in Barcelona is that lunch is the heaviest meal, so you see a lot of daily 3-course menus for lunch and light snacks for dinner. We tried a few daily menus (10-14€) – I really enjoyed caldo gallego and dorada (sea bream) at Restaurant Flauta and succulent swordfish with grilled veggies (including meaty wood-ear mushrooms) at Kiosko Universal in the Mercat de la Boqueria. For dinner, I think Barcelona is more known for montaditos (open faced sandwiches) than it is for tapas. We enjoyed Orio, where you help yourself to whatever looks good from the bar and the waiter tallies your toothpicks at the end to charge you. We also tried Quimet and Quimet (featured on No Reservations) which I enjoyed a little more than Kev. And finally, we ate at a falafel chain called Maoz three – count ‘em, three! – times. We have been searching for good falafel in Doha and haven’t really found anything stellar. The Maoz right by Mercat de la Boqueria was always super busy so everything was fresh and hot. You’re handed a pita with hummus, lettuce and falafel and you dress it up however you like from their condiment bar (sundried tomatoes, chili sauce, cucumbers, etc.). Awesome double-fried french fries as well. I saw online that they have locations in the NE US and Europe – hopefully they’re all as good as Barcelona because we definitely recommend a stop!
FIGUERES
We took a day trip from Barcelona to Figueres, home to the Teatre-Museu-Dali (the Dali museum). Figueres is around 50km shy of the French border and a ~2 hr. train (~23€ round-trip) from Barcelona. I loved the walk from the train station to the museum – two big farmers’ markets! I convinced Kevin to stop at the first market for some fresh churros con azucar (sugar) where, unlike the other two times we had churros in Madrid, we got to see these made fresh. The churro man had two different extruders – one for the crunchy kind (with six pointy edges, kinda like a Philips head screwdriver – he shot the dough in with quick squirts) and one for the doughy kind (round edges which he shot in one continuous motion, like a funnel cake). Find me another word for YUM, please! We made our way to the museum, which Dali “personally conceptualized, designed, decorated, and painted… to showcase his life’s work.” From the crazy exterior to the crazy interior, it was a treat to see, though I enjoyed the sculptures a bit more than the paintings. Several of the pieces of art where coin-operated (such as Dali’s own 1941 Cadillac that rains inside the car for 1€) which was neat.
I think it’s safe to say Spain isn’t quite like we expected, but if anything my old mantra of hating churches and museums has been revised a bit. Maybe in Italy I had church burn-out, but I’ve decided that I enjoy churches and Spain is quite fantastic for them. I also enjoy museums when I enjoy the style of art – modern is for me, classics are for Kev. I found the Spanish people quite friendly and courteous. Cars stop for you at crosswalks! Must be a law that people actually follow! Both Sevilla and Barcelona are also quite perfect for pedestrians and fitness and I was pleased to see so many folks out and about, particularly compared to our last trip to Istanbul where there was almost no public green space. Barcelona is full of bikes, but not in a meddlesome way like Amsterdam. There is a bike share program called Bicing (not available to tourists) and we saw tons of people using these bikes. The weather was perfect – crisp and sunny for the most part – and we enjoyed walking around. I also DREAM of the day I am forced to buy all of my groceries at a farmers' market. Barcelona embraces them. They have a great website detailing the 30+ markets around town here.
Travel tips
- Consider booking open-jaw tickets when visiting a country or area where you want to see multiple destinations. A ticket to Madrid and from Barcelona would have cost about as much as a round-trip ticket to either Madrid or Barcelona. We’ve done this for a few trips now and find it’s a cost efficient way to travel.
- Trains are not always cheaper than flights. The train from Sevilla to Barcelona was twice the cost of a flight on Vueling (a low airfare carrier) and the time in-air is much faster (though with airport connections factored in we probably broke even on time).
- Always try to find a grocery store or farmers’ market on your trip. I always feel like my vacation diet lacks fruit so markets are a great place to stock up on fruit and a cheap place for sodas, water, snacks and picnic supplies.
- We try to pay with our credit card wherever possible. Our Doha neighbors tipped us off to a Capital One World MasterCard that charges no foreign transaction fees (which are normally 2-3%) and gives a 1% cash rebate.
- We had some trouble with our US credit cards on some Spanish websites – such as buying train tickets on Renfe.com or Real Madrid tickets through ServiCaixa.com. I think this is due to most Euro credit cards requiring a PIN and US cards having softer security. There are various added-security programs you can register your US Visa or MC for online but this only allowed us to make one of our three purchases. We are fortunate to have European friends and used their card for two of our purchases. This did burn us on the Real Madrid tickets when I realized after our purchase that we needed the card to pick up our tickets. A copy of the card sufficed, but just check all fine print when purchasing something like this!
- American banks generally limit the amount you can take out of an ATM, but as we learned on our last trip you can ask them to increase your transaction limit. This reduces the number of trips you make to the ATM and reduces your bank fees (~$5 per transaction).
- We learned in Amsterdam that it pays to buy museum tickets online, where you generally reserve a time for admittance. We did this for the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, which ended up being unnecessary as there was no queue, but I think this is still a good tip (particularly to avoid long lines – you never know when there’ll be one!).
- McFlurrys are better in Europe – Oreo Caramelo in Madrid and Snickers, Mars or Twix with peanuts, chocolate and caramel in Frankfurt.
Thanks for the travel tips!
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