Barcelona
February 2023
Gaudi
Definitely THE highlight of Barcelona for me. I LOVE colors!
La Sagrada Familia - absolutely amazing must see/do. The colors, shapes, and light play in the stained glass is beyond gorgeous. I loved all of the detailed carvings and different styles.
Casa Milà - super interesting snapshot of what housing looked like when this was designed. I loved the open areas and common spaces where the light and colors were particularly well displayed.
Casa Battló - observed only from the outside, lots of details to see, worth a stroll by
Park Güell - a nice big area to roam around in, definitely more crowded around the Gaudi pieces.
City Exploring
Parc de la Ciutadella - HUGE park - gotta fit that woolly mammoth and a nice lake with statues all around. Perfect for a picnic and stroll.
Flower market - Floristeries Navarro, we stopped at as part of a Rick Steves free walking tour. Free to browse exquisitely arranged flowers.
La Concepció Market (featured below, also part of the walking tour) The entire market staff was dressed up for the Saint Eulàlia Festival, featuring many Disney characters. A good stop for a traditional market visit or to get any fresh fish, meat, produce, etc!
Flamenco Show at Palau Damases - talented, raw flamenco (from someone who’s only taken 1 semester of flamenco dancing). The fun part was seeing the dancers after talking to each other with their feet, figuring out a series of steps.
Playa de la Barceloneta - A nice long stretch of sandy beach. There was a large sandcastle building contest when we went, and this dragon / sea creature was one of my favs.
La Rambla / Mercado de La Boqueria / Gothic Quarter - Worth a stroll around, take a walking tour here to learn more. We circled several times as we stayed fairly close. Go hungry to the market, there’s a lot of yummy hand held foods. Head all the way to the water for some lovely views.
Circus! - At the waterfront side of the Gothic corner we wandered and saw there was a circus in town, so obviously had to go check that out!
Day Trips
One of the best parts of staying in Barcelona for an extended period of time was getting to do so many long day trips outside the city. Even better is that we took public transit - trains & metro to get to all of these, so we never needed a car to explore beaches or famous museums, what a concept for an American!
Figures - Came for the Dalí museum and was not disappointed. There were other interactive parts that required Euro coins to operate, which we didn’t have.
Girona - on the way back from Figures, stopped by this super cute town. I was obsessed with the colors and reflections of the buildings on the water. After exploring the Arab baths and hiking around, we visited a café in a bookshop - Somia Vins i Llibres - for wine and cheese while reading familiar titles in Spanish.
Montserrat - Exciting cable car ride to get up here. Definitely the best hiking views of the trip, along with some ruins. The abbey also reminding us of how super religious Barcelona is (was?).
Sitges - WOW! Super fun, we came here during Carnaval so there were a ton of party-goers all dressed up and multiple parades happening. It was sort of like Halloween in the US, pretty random costumes of all sorts. Ate some great empanadas and relaxed on the beach, which would have probably been much more crowded in the summer.
