Flashback Friday: BARCELONA!

I have not done a great job of keeping up with my goal of going back in time to recap/ “immortalize on the blog” our past trips. (For any new readers, I love writing up detailed trip recaps of our family travels. I started this in 2020, when I started the blog. It’s my version of… “photo booking” or “scrapbooking” (which I do zero of, in the traditional sense).

I am now attempting to go back pre-2020 (i.e. pre-blog) and write up all of our trips since we got married in 2007! Quite the feat, but, a “passion project” for me of sorts. So far I have only done our Disney World honeymoon (2007) from these past trips. See all my travel content here.

I am now jumping ahead out of order all the way to 2017, by specific request from my friend Elisabeth. She and her family are headed to Barcelona SOON for spring break! (Eek, so excited for them!) So when she learned that I’ve been to Barcelona, she asked if I would recap that trip sooner than later. Por supuesto! 😉

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Barcelona- September 2017

Our time in Barcelona was part of a larger, 16 day trip to Spain and Italy to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. I will cover the other destinations another time, but zooming ahead… here’s Barcelona! (Destination #4 of the 8 we visited! I’m jumping right into the middle of our long trip.)

Day 1: Thursday, 9/14/2017

We flew from Seville, Spain to Barcelona on Thursday morning. On this leg of the trip, we were going to be meeting up with my sister!!!! Her husband had a conference in Barcelona and we had coordinated the dates to meet up (they live in Ireland). AND, they were bringing along my 3 month old baby niece!! (Who I hadn’t met yet.)

Ivan and I flew in (no kids along on this trip), took an airport bus downtown, and from there navigated the metro to the Airbnb that we’d be sharing with my sister.

Of course, the first thing I did was hold Baby E!!!

That first afternoon/ evening my sister, baby, Ivan and I headed out to do a little exploring. My brother-in-law was at the conference that day, so he couldn’t join us for this part.

Some of these details are fuzzy now… We mostly just planned out a little route to walk around some of the main plazas, tourist spots, etc. And catch up, of course!

Plaza Cataluyna:

Las Ramblas: (We were there right after the horrible terrorist attack where someone drove a truck through this pedestrian street and killed a bunch of people… so sad.)

Lots of walking around neat looking streets…

Cathedral:

Placa Reial:

Old Roman Towers in the middle of the city! Tucked away down a side street, this was in my guide book but was mostly empty. A great place for baby to have a little quiet break and have a bottle. 🙂

Later that night we went out for dinner near the Airbnb with my brother-in-law and I think a couple of colleagues of his, also in town for the conference. We called it a night after a great first “introductory” afternoon in Barcelona. First impression was- WOW. So vibrant, alive, historic, such cool architecture everywhere…. I just totally loved the vibe!!!

Day 2- Friday, 9/15/2017

The big plan Friday was to see La Sagrada Familia, basically THE most important and famous attraction in Barcelona. It’s a stunning, incredible and also weird and huge basilica, famously designed by Antonio Gaudi. And, it’s actually not done yet!

Sadly, we had a gloomy, rain-spattering day that day, which made photos turn out dark. But, the whole gothic architecture thing kind of lends itself to moody, spooky days. So maybe it worked out just fine! 🙂

The inside is oddly quite bright and cheery, with white stone and TONS of stained glass. It’s incredible.

We spent a good while there… you can wander around and see it from all angles, plus there was a little attached museum with more info about the construction, architecture, Gaudi, small scale models, etc.

After lunch, we toured Casa Mila (aka La Pedrera). This was another one of Gaudi’s famous works in the city.

We did an audio tour and although I knew very little about it going in, I think we all found it surprisingly interesting and really enjoyable! There were cool views from the upper windows, too.

This is another one, Casa Batllo, that we didn’t have time to tour. But I really love how this one looks!

We wanted to have enough time to get to Park Guell, another one of the most famous sites in Barcelona. Unfortunately, it was still cloudy/ spitting rain, so the views from the park (which look out to the ocean and over all of Barcelona) were not ideal that day. Oh well. This was still super cool! I felt like I was in Alice in Wonderland or Candy Land… the architecture is so unique.

Park Guell

Me and my big sister!

We headed back to the Airbnb after that for a break and some snacks. I loved just wandering around this city, and the metro seemed very efficient and easy to use. (We were staying a little outside of the main tourist loop, so this worked out well.)

Later at night we walked to a popular area with many restaurants for dinner. I just remember playing the “restaurant game”, popping in and out, looking at menus, etc. until we finally settled on a place that apparently was known for selling lots of MEAT. haha. This was a nice night out with all of us. ❤

Day 3- Saturday, 9/16/2017

Montserrat!!

Day 3 was probably my favorite day! The weather was great, and we spent most of the day up in the mountains at Montserrat. This is a monastery built up in the cliffs, and it’s just amazing. The views are incredible and I loved everything about it.

First though, we had breakfast on our balcony. How perfect is this spot for morning tea?!

Eventually we took the metro to the Fountain of Montjuic in Barcelona. From there we had to take another train out to Montserrat. Details fuzzy- I think maybe close to an hour’s ride?? Don’t quote me on that.

Here I have to insert a picture that always makes me laugh… I somehow got sucked into engaging with a very persistent salesman trying to sell me a selfie stick. He was giving me the whole spiel and when I tried to walk away, he offered to demo it for me with my phone.

Hahaha!

I have to say, his tactic worked! I knew Ivan and I still had another week+ of our trip left, and the rest of it we’d be on our own (i.e. no one to take our picture….). The selfie stick was pretty handy! So I ended up buying it. LOL. He got me.

Once we arrived to Montserrat, we had to take a funicular cable car up the mountain. Yikes! (I’m ok with heights, but this might be iffy if you hate heights!)

The views from it were incredible!

Wow. 😍

I believe we ate lunch at the cafe at the top near the monastery. But the best part was hiking! We set out on the trails after a quick lunch and this was so cool.

Just absolutely stunning.

On the way down we did pop into the church to see the Black Madonna, or the Virgin of Montserrat, which is a wooden sculpture and believed to have been carved in Jerusalem.

We ended up with some time to kill before the train back to Barcelona would come. So we got drinks / a snack at a random little mountainside cafe near the train station.

Loved this little place!

No one was there except us and it was a very pretty surrounding. Also, these pics make me laugh for a couple of reasons. 1) Note my sister feeding the baby while drinking an enormous glass of red wine. HAHA. Traveling with a baby stressful much, eh sis?? lol. And 2) A good example of the realities of traveling with an infant… diaper changing on the floor….

Back in Barcelona, we parted ways with my sister + BIL for the evening. With us being “childless” on this trip, we decided to go do some more wandering around Barcelona. They headed back to the Airbnb to give baby a break from the front pack! (She did so great though! I think we were all a little unsure how the long day trip would go, but she was a trooper mountain baby. :))

Details again fuzzy for this part, but I do remember meandering around a very cute area of town that had lots of cozy bars and restaurants. We ended up at this little place:

Pretty sure that the nice evening went south after that, as I *think* that was the night we ended up getting in a big fight over how to get back to the Airbnb. LOL. We were walking part way/ metro-ing part way- and I don’t even recall the details- but I just remember getting all turned around and mixed up and then fighting about it. Hahaha. Oh, what’s international travel if you don’t have a “directionally challenged blowout” with your spouse at some point along the way. 😅

Day 4- Sunday, 9/17/2017

Ok, bear with me- almost done! Sunday was our last full day in Barcelona before moving on to Venice.

On Sunday Ivan and I had tickets for the Camp Nou Experience, which is basically a big tour of the stadium and museum of the famous FC Barcelona soccer team. Can’t remember why exactly- maybe just lack of interest, or they had other plans, or maybe just that babies don’t care about soccer stadiums- but we did this part solo without my sister.

Ivan is a HUGE lifelong fan of Barcelona. (He is a huge soccer fan in general and has always been obsessed with Lionel Messi, who was still playing for Barca at that time.)

We took the metro pretty early and then walked the rest- it was really far from where we were staying. One negative, I guess, of Barcelona is that it is a pretty sprawling, spread out city. Some European cities are a little more compact. Barcelona didn’t seem to be.

Camp Nou

This was AWESOME. I didn’t even know much about FC Barcelona and I found it fascinating and super enjoyable.

First we toured the very large museum. It had oodles of history about Messi, the club in general, and also houses ALL of the team trophies, Messi’s personal trophies and much more.

I’d highly recommend this if you have even a little interest in soccer or European teams!

After that, we did some more meandering around the city. We ended up down at the marina and the beach.

The beach nearby was crazy crowded!!!

I feel like many European beaches get like this? Just based on “hearsay”. But whoa. Not really my style, but, still fun to check out!

We had plans to meet up with my sister and brother-in-law at a bar/restaurant for an earlier dinner. So we headed that way next.

No pics of this dinner but I remember it being slightly a bust. There was some huge rugby game, I think, on the bar TVs and the place was super crowded and super loud. My baby niece was apparently “done” traveling and had a massive meltdown… I recall walking around outside with my sister while she tried to get her to settle. Eventually I believe she did and we were able to eat. 🙂

Afterwards we passed this bakery and Ivan and I sampled a couple treats for dessert.

Finally, back at the Airbnb, we packed up our backpacks (we did backpacks only for the full 16-day trip) and relaxed with my sister + family on the balcony.

Ivan and I had a very early flight the next morning to Venice. I remember while planning the trip that I had hemmed and hawed about if we should take the 7 am flight or the 11 am flight. Obviously 7 am is super early when you factor in the transport and airport time.

But eventually my sister said, “When are you going to go back to Venice? You only have 3 nights there as it is… YOLO! Take the early flight.”

So we did, and I was very happy that we did! We greatly appreciated that extra time in Venice. 🙂

And that’s the end of our 4 nights in Barcelona! I think we packed a ton in, yet it never felt rushed. We did a lot of lingering in cafes and restaurants and just wandering around, too.

But the best part was squeezing in a visit with my sister during this portion! I can’t wait to go back to Barcelona someday. I know there is a ton we didn’t see and do there yet, and I think the boys would just love it.