We recently returned from a week long vacation in Barcelona, Spain and thought I would document our journey.
Beginnings:
We set off on Friday, February 14th from Denver International Airport, en route to JFK on Delta Airlines. Everything went very smoothly, including an encounter at the airport with baseball great Todd Helton, and the international Delta flight was enjoyable. International flights are always so much better than domestic, mainly because of the unlimited alcohol and the free food. We received a menu that said we'd be receiving a "welcome cocktail" (peach bellini) and a few different choices for appetizer and dinner. The food was pretty good! It was a nice flight, but we didn't sleep much.
Day One:
We arrived in Barcelona around 10am. We quickly found our way to the Aerobus - a bus that takes you straight from the airport to the heart of the city. It was about a 30 minute drive, and the bus stop was only about a 5 minute walk to our hotel.
We stayed at the Hotel Continental Palacete, which was off of La Rambla, a long, busy street that is full of shops, restaurants, and bars. It was in a quieter area than a little further down the street, although at night we could still hear people hooting and hollering until late at night.
Overall, we really enjoyed our stay at Continental Palacete. The best part is that our hotel had a 24/7 buffet that included beer and wine (red and white). The buffet was definitely a benefit both at breakfast and later in the evening, being able to have a glass of wine in the room. There was also a fro-yo machine!
Our room, and view from our room, pictured below.
We began exploring the sites. On our first day, we visited Casa Batllo, Casa Amatller (Batllo and Amatller are right next to each other), Casa Mila (La Padrera), and the Arc de Triomf. These are definitely all worth a visit.
Inside the Casa Mila, and outside of Casa Batllo, pictured below.
Afterwards, we were excited to experience our first tapas dinner in Barcelona! We found a great tapas restaurant close to our hotel, Cuidad Condal, where we were able to sit outside since the weather was pretty nice. Maybe it was the excitement of the trip, but I definitely feel like we couldn't have chosen a better place for our first taste of authentic Spanish tapas. Everything we had was great: Sangria, Spanish ham, bread rubbed with tomato and olive oil (pan con tomate), garlic shrimp, potatoes with egg and ham, mini steak baguettes, Spanish omelette, churros, bread pudding. It was quite the feast.
Ham, pan con tomate, Sangria
We were definitely more than exhausted on the first day. We both had some of the worst jet lag ever. It's like you're walking around sleepwalking, but you don't want to waste anytime so you just power through it. The sleepiness didn't really go away until about 3-4 days in. But, we went to bed stuffed and happy.
Day Two:
Day Two consisted of another full day of sightseeing. On today's agenda, we saw the Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell, the Barcelona Cathedral, Basilica of Santa Maria Del Mar, and walked through the Ciutadella park.
H and E pictured at Parc Guell
Unfortunately, half of Parc Guell was under construction, so we didn't spend a ton of time there. In fact, there was a line to take a picture at this iconic spot, because half of this long, colorful bench was closed off. But I would definitely recommend this place to anyone visiting Barcelona, as well as all other sites seen on this day. Ciutadella Park would probably be a nice place to have a picnic in the summer. This was the only cloudy day of the trip, but it was still nice enough to not wear a jacket.
For dinner, we returned to Cuidad Condal, and again had a tapas feast. We tried a few different tapas this time, and made sure to try the calcots - a Catalan specialty, which happen to be in season in February. These are essentially really big green onions, and they are served with a romanesco dipping sauce. They were interesting. My favorite tapa tonight was the mini Mallorca sausage baguette. 100% recommend!
Day Three:
Day Three, Monday the 17th, was probably my favorite day of the trip, but I may be biased because it was also my birthday.
We set out in the morning to go wine tasting about an hour outside of Barcelona in the "Penedes" region. There appeared to be several wineries in this area, and today we were going to visit 2 of them. We first stopped at a cava winery, Pere Ventura, where we toured the cava wine caves and learned all about the production of cava. After the tour, we tried 4 different cavas with a variety of light snacks.
We then headed to the Can Bas winery, which was beautiful. We took a tour of the grounds and then rode a jeep through the vineyards. This was definitely a cool experience. We again tried 4 wines with a variety of tapas. The Can Bas winery was definitely one of the prettiest that I have been to.
Anyone that knows me knows that wine tasting and touring vineyards is one of my favorite activities - it is a great way to spend part of your vacation - is there anything better than drinking local wine overlooking a beautiful wine estate and vineyard? I think not.
Day Four:
Day Four consisted of another full day of sightseeing in Barcelona. Today, we headed to Montjuic Castle. We did this by taking the subway, and then the funicular, and then the gondola up to the castle. It was a clear day, and you could see all of Barcelona from the gondola. It was a really cool experience.
After touring the castle, we took the gondola back down and visited the Olympic stadium (where Eric got to check out the local rugby team, the Catalan Dragons, practicing/playing against the Sydney roosters), the Parc de Montjuic, the Montjuic Fountains (we were hoping to see a "magic fountain" show, but the fountains did not appear to be turned on), and Poble Espanyol. We really enjoyed Poble Espanyol. Poble Espanyol is hard to describe. It's like a mini village of everything "Spain." It has a museum, shops, bars, open spaces. It was really cute. We wandered into several different stores and everyone was super friendly. This is where we bought the most goodies to bring back home - Spanish candy, mini bottles of sangria, olive oil. We also wandered into a cute little wine bar and were able to have a nice chat with the owners, both of whom were from Argentina and now living in Barcelona. They kept giving us more wine and snacks, and took a picture of us for their Instagram page (for anyone interested, the picture can be found on their IG: "Winedelduero"). Great place!
We then continued to wander through town, visiting the Placa Reial (beautiful spot) and wandering through the Gothic Quarter a bit more. It was a busy, but fun day.
Day Five:
Day Five consisted of a full day tour to Montserrat. This was definitely a FULL day - about 12 hours. We met our tour group in front of the Hard Rock Cafe in the Plaza Catalunya and set off for Montserrat, a mountain region outside of Barcelona. I wish someone had warned me that the road we'd take up to the mountains would be full of twists and turns for about an hour - I would have packed a Dramamine - good tip for anyone else who experiences motion sickness!
When we arrived, our tour guide, Merak, talked us through the history of Montserrat and the Montserrat Church that we'd be visiting. We had quite a bit of free time here, so we walked through the church, through the shops where we sampled some local liqueurs, and through the farmer's market where we probably sampled about 50 different kinds of local cheeses. At the church, we waited in line to touch the hand of the "black Madonna." There were some what appeared to be Eastern Europeans behind us in line that would have been great candidates for the Instagram page "Influencers in the Wild" - these people were having a full-on photo shoot with literally everything in the church.
We then rode the bus down the hill to a local Montserrat winery, Oller del Mas. We enjoyed a 3-course lunch with wine, which consisted of potato leek soup, duck breast with Spanish potatoes, and a caramel cake of some sort. After lunch, we toured part of the winery including the castle that is on sight. We climbed to the top of the castle, before headed back down to the main winery building for a wine tasting.
We tried several of the estate's wines, and learned more about the history of Spanish wine and European wine in general. We then had some free time to enjoy the grounds and relax with a glass of wine before heading back to Barcelona.
On the grounds, we saw some Catalan donkeys, which are apparently close to extinction and also a symbol of Catalan culture, so the remaining donkeys are free to spend their days grazing the pastures.
We returned to Barcelona, and headed to Cerveseria Cataluna, a place I had found on Trip Advisor close to our hotel that had a lot of great reviews. The place was pretty packed, but we were able to get some seats at the counter after just a few minutes of waiting. This was another great tapas experience, and I finally got to try some "bombas" - little potato balls with two delicious creamy sauces, one lighter, and one darker. This is apparently one of Barcelona's "must try" foods, and I would highly recommend getting some bombas when you visit Barcelona. So good!
Day Six:
Day Six was our last full day in Barcelona, and I wanted to spend the day checking out anything we may have missed that we originally planned to see, as well as take it a bit easy since the trip had been very "go, go, go." After breakfast, we walked down to La Boqueria, Barcelona's main market place. This is a huge market - it has everything - restaurants/bars, meat, seafood, vegetables, bread, olives, spices, candies, nuts, sauces - you name it. I had read online that Pinotxo Bar was worth a visit, so we decided to check it out. Apparently, this place is super popular and it's hard to get a seat later on in the day, but luckily we got there pretty early. We ordered a glass of cava and a serving of their specialty - the chickpeas. They were definitely the best chickpeas I've ever had. The chickpeas were in an olive oil and lamb sauce - it was delicious. It might have been the best thing I ate on the whole trip. From what I could tell, they serve some staples and also some dishes that rotate depending on which day you're there. An adorable old man in a bowtie, Juanito, apparently the owner, was hard at work behind the counter. He was very nice, and clearly loves his job. I believe he is somewhat of a Barcelona legend.
After wandering through La Boqueria, we journeyed some more through the Gothic Quarter, and wandered through the Frederic Mares Museum. This museum had a lot of 19th century gadgets and gizmos - old guns, swords, pipes, cameras, clocks, walking canes, playing cards, pictures. It was interesting but I don't know if I'd consider it a "must see."
Note: we tried finding the Barcelona History Museum for a long time. I don't know if it really exists. People kept pointing us in different directions, but we never found it. Now I'm not sure if it's a real museum or just a collection of things scattered through the city? Anyone?
As we continued through the Gothic Quarter, we passed by a nail/massage parlor, and decided to get a 30-minute foot massage. This was much needed after 6 days of walking non-stop. Plus, the 30-minute foot massage was only 18 euro!
I had read online about a rooftop bar in Barcelona with great views of the city, Alaire Terrace, and lucky for us, it was just a few blocks from our hotel. We ventured over and posted up here for a bit. Of course, the drinks and food were more expensive here than a normal restaurant, but it was worth it for the views. We enjoyed a glass of wine and some croquettes (a popular tapa in Barcelona) with a great view of the city, looking directly towards the Casa Mila. It was really nice.
We meandered back to La Rambla and chose a restaurant close to our hotel where we would be able to sit outside and enjoy our last meal. Since we hadn't tried paella yet, I knew this is what we needed to order for dinner. Our last dinner consisted of more pan de tomate (so simple, yet so delicious), meatballs, and the most delicious seafood paella! Well, Eric ordered steak, but I had the paella. It was everything I hoped for and more in a Spanish paella!
Day Seven:
We bid farewell to Barcelona on Day Seven. We ate breakfast and walked down to Plaza Catalunya to catch the bus to the airport. I overestimated how long it would take to get to the airport as well as how long the security line would be (it was very short), so we had some time to kill in the airport. We had 1 last glass of Spanish cava, and were on our way back to the United States.
Overall:
Barcelona is a great city. It's clean, friendly, colorful, and warm. There is plenty to see and do. We had some great food, wine, cava, and sangria (and it was all relatively cheap). We actually took the exact right amount of Euros with us - I spent our last 4 euros on a mini bottle of sangria at the airport, which the TSA at JFK later confiscated from me (#EndTheTSA).
However, Barcelona is kind of a "newer" city. Other than the Gothic Quarter, most of the city did not exist until the 19th century. This disappointed Eric who likes to see and visit historical sites. Most of Barcelona's "must see" sites (Casa Batllo, Parc Guell, Sagrada Familia) were all designed by Antoni Gaudi in the late 1800s/early 1900s. So, it's definitely not on the same level as say, Rome, London, or Paris. I also think we could have done Barcelona in a couple days, and then moved on to another city in Spain. However, incorporating day trips and keeping Barcelona as your home base isn't a bad way to spend a week, like we did. Overall, we had a great time, and I would love to return to a different part of Spain in the future!
