Several days after I turned in my MA thesis Sam and I celebrated by purchasing a Groupon trip to Barcelona. Turns out it was a total scam. The hotel that the coupon was for wasn’t the hotel they were going to put us in, we’d be on separate flights- all kind of crazy things. We had to call 12 times to try to get them to redeem what we had purchased. And by us, I mean Sam because I get phone anxiety. I’ll talk to anyone in person but hand me a phone and really awkward things happen. I have zero phone grace; I script out important calls. But back to the story. Luckily, Groupon completely refunded our money. Bad news we were down one trip. So Sam swung into action and sorted it out for us!
Our hotel was amazingly central. We were just a short walk from La Rambla. Since we were only going to be in Barcelona for two days we spent the first day on one of those Hop-on, Hop-off Tour buses. Cheesy yes, but for short stays I recommend them because you can get a general gist of the famous sites, and pick which ones are the most important for you to see on this trip and which you can save for another. Then you don’t have to feel like you need to run around frantically trying to cram everything a city has to offer in one short go.
Of course we hit up all the Gaudi Classics.
(Casa Mila)
Since I minored in Spanish and cultural studies are part of that degree I’d seen hundreds of pictures of La Sagrada Familia. But they all fell QUITE short from describing the extravagant, fantastic, amazingness that is the Sagrada.
(Ceiling in La Sagrada Familia)
Sam and I both came to the conclusion that I “accidentally” force him to do things he hates. Like being up high, anywhere. The London Eye, the Eiffel Tower, the top of the Sagrada….
Parc Guell was my favourite part of the trip. We spent ages there.
(Parc Guell)
We took the cable car up to the top of Montjuic and then walked all the way down, and crossed the city to the beach. No trip to a seaside city would be complete for Sam without a trip to the beach. If you do all the walking trails down Montjuic you will find all these amazing picnic spots, photo spots and playgrounds for kids and adults. (Including the longest slide I’ve ever been on.)
(Montjuic)
On our last day in Spain we went to the Mercat de la Boqueria, aka the best food market in the entire world and also the part of the trip I was most looking forward to- all that food!!!!! It was a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach.
(Mercat de la Boqueria)
