Since this post was written, we’ve now returned to Barcelona and will be sharing more details about the city in other posts. You’ll be able to find them all here (as they’re published!).
In my first post about Barcelona, I shared some of the logistics: where we stayed, travel guides, and the bus. This post covers some of the finer details that made our time in the city so enjoyable.
Museums & Art
Barcelona is beautiful and inspiring city. Everything from the basilicas in the Gothic and Born districts to the modernist Guadi designs. Then there are public art sculptures around every corner, and of course the many museums.
With a limited travel window and the plan to return to the city, we didn’t want to overwhelm our schedule with multiple museum visits. So when it came to choosing the one museum that we didn’t wan to miss on this trip, for us it was an easy pick Miro over Picasso. We’ll see Picasso the next time we’re in town…. and we saw many Guadi buildings from the outside, but saved any tours for the future.
The Gothic Quarter
Our hotel wasn’t far from the Gothic Quarter of the city, and it’s such a pleasure walking around those narrow streets and passageways! During the day this is a busy tourist section of the city, but at night, the area clears out, and it’s even more fun/spooky to walk around.
I’ve read in some places that walking through the area at night is not recommended, but we were always together and didn’t have any negative experiences.
The Food Market off La Rambla
La Rambla is a main walking/tourism street near the Gothic Quarter. We didn’t find La Rambla itself to be very exciting, as it’s mostly full of stands selling souvenirs to tourists, BUT there are many interesting and exciting sites off La Rambla. One of those is the La Boqueria!
La Boqueria is a huge food market, with stands selling everything you can imagine. There are the raw ingredients for cooking at home, everything from butcher stands, fresh fruit, and veg, to spices and breads. There are also stands with ready-made food and drinks that you could pick up for a picnic.
Whether you’re hungry or not, it’s definitely worth a visit!
Food
We were so excited to try out tapas when we arrived! We knew that eating late (think 9pm!) was the norm, but surprisingly, we had such a hard time finding restaurants during our first visit!
*Now that we’ve been back for a while, we’ve realized a few things about the timing of our first trip. August is known as a vacation month in Europe, and that’s definitely true for Barcelona. Many of the restaurants that we wanted to try the first time around were closed, and that’s because they were on vacation. Now that we’ve been here longer, we’ve had great success finding restaurants, and I’m excited to write about then in a future post.
That said, we found one restaurant that we enjoyed enough to go back twice! It’s Ciutat Camtal. The food was fantastic. In the photos below, you can see a sample of the tapas that we ordered, there was seafood, fried peppers, steak….
On another day we shared a late after paella lunch that was also phenomenal. This lunch was in a square off La Rambla, so it was definitely a tourist stop, but we enjoyed both the food and the view.
There it is, just a snapshot of what you can see and do in Barcelona if you only have a few days and are taking it easy. Of course, if you’re motivated, you can fit a bit more into your visit! Now that we’ve seen it, I’d definitely add Casa Botlla to anyone’s short list.