I had the pleasure of spending five full days in beautiful Barcelona this past March (6 nights, 7 days, but 2 of them were wasted on traveling so those I won’t count). I absolutely LOVED Barcelona. I won’t lie, I was a bit nervous after reading many negative things about it on the internet in regards to thefts and scams that target tourists. Perhaps Radojko and I got lucky because we pretended we didn’t speak English, responded to anyone who approached us only in Serbian, and waved our arms pretending we didn’t know anything. This may seem ridiculous, but it sure kept people away from us (and we had a good laugh seeing people’s confused reaction trying to figure out what language we were speaking!). In this 5 part series, I will write about what we did each day, highlighting the favourites in a 6th post that I will write at the end of the series to summarize it all. I will also write separate posts about our hotel, where we ate, how to get around the city, and things to be aware of. So let’s kick it off with Day 1.
Please note: We took the train from our hotel to the Diagonal stop on Carrer Rossello and Rambla Catalunya and made our way on foot to all of the attractions that we saw that day, and hopped on the Metro at Placa de Tetuan. And yes…we walked A LOT!
Casa Mila aka La Pedrera
Although we did not go inside Casa Mila, we took a few minutes to admire the beauty of the building. From the pictures I saw, it appears that going inside is worth the money. If you have been inside, I would love to hear your opinion in the comments below!
Casa Battlo and Casa Ametller
Once again we did not go inside, but took some time to admire the unique and beautiful architecture.
Placa Catalunya
We strolled down Passeig de Gracia, stopping inside some shops along the way (including Zara Home which I didn’t know existed!) to Placa Catalunya where we took a break and watched a lady feed some pigeons (not going to lie, I was paranoid one was going to poop on my head). If you take the Aerobus from the airport to the city center, this is where you will be dropped off. A nice place to take a break in my opinion.
Catedral
To save money, we decided not to enter the Catedral which had an entrance fee (it seems everything has an entrance fee, so if you are on a budget, be sure to pick and choose what is worth seeing for you). Having just arrived from Milan and seeing the Duomo, the Catedral was not that special.
Pl. de St. Jaume
This was a pleasant surprise. I love town squares, perhaps because we don’t have many where I live in Canada, so I always admire squares in any city that I visit in the world.
This street made me say wow! I love palm trees so any street that is filled with them will leave me in awe. Here we took a break on one of the benches and admired the Marina, the Estatua de Colom from a distance, and people watched (always one of my favourite hobbies while traveling).
GELATO BREAK!
We took a gelato break at Vioko which was recommended to me by my friend Sanja, and which I now recommend to all of you that visit Barcelona. The gelato was delicious! We tried Violet and Blueberry (one flavour), and Rose and Strawberry (one flavour) which were both delicious! The ice cream was good, but the customer service was not so don’t expect much in terms of that.
It was super windy and cold when we got by the beach so we didn’t get to enjoy it as much as we would have liked to, but it was fun to watch people kite surfing. By this beach we found a cheap grocery store (sorry forgot the name) that had reasonably priced items so we grabbed some snacks and water there.
Parc de la Barceloneta
This park was nothing special, it was just one that we walked through, but it did have this neat looking tower called Torre de les Aigues.
Parc de la Ciutadella
This was our biggest highlight of the day. The whole park is gorgeous! There is even a zoo, but we did not visit it (once again, being cheap, saving money). We sat on a bench under a tree and took a nice long break and admired the beauty.
It is here that we spotted our first monk parakeets (correct me if I am wrong). At first we thought they had escaped the zoo, but turns out, you can spot these little guys all over Barcelona!
Parlament de Catalunya has a beautiful garden in front of it and it is a beautiful place for a photo opp. There are some benches you can sit on there and admire the beauty as well.
La Cascada of Parc Ciutadella was possibly the highlight of this park, although everything in this park is beautiful. Another place for some great photo opps!
Arc del Triomf
The Pg. de Lluis Companys was beautiful to walk down as well, but perhaps we did not appreciate it as much at the time as we had just spent time in the beautiful Parc de la Ciutadella. The Arc del Triomf is definitely an impressive structure, but if you miss it, that’s ok too.
Have you seen any of these places while in Barcelona? Which was your favourite? Please share your thoughts below.
Happy Travels Everyone!
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