Ashley and I had an early flight from Vienna to Barcelona on Thursday morning, April 6th. We finally got the RyanAir experience. It wasn’t too bad but figuring out baggage policies and weights was a bit tricky. Since Ashley was in Vienna for work, she had to bring a lot of extra business and professional clothes and shoes compared to my vacation wear. We booked our hotel on Booking.com as Ashley has used it countless times for other trips. It came with “free” transportation from the airport to our hotel. Great! Once we got to Barcelona and picked up our baggage, the person who was supposed to be picking us up was nowhere to be found. After some time, we finally got in touch with someone who spoke poor English that we were there and in the right spot. Eventually, someone found us. They were not in any kind of uniform nor did they have a sign with our name on it. We were brought to a median near the pickup/dropoff sections and told to wait and the guy left just telling us that he was not our driver and that our driver would arrive soon. After a bit of time, two other families were queued up next to us. Eventually a driver showed up and brought us to our hotel. The driver was with Bolt Taxi, a ridesharing company. My guess, is that the first guy was a middle man, coordinating with (or taking money from) Booking.com and he called (and paid for) a Bolt Taxi once we got there. Overall, not pleased but it got us to our Hotel. The driver was friendly and excellent at navigating the crowded streets.
Our hotel, Catalonia Portal de l’Àngel, was set off a pedestrian-only street. Luckily, our driver was able to get through the gates to drop us off directly in front of the hotel. The hotel had a really neat lobby area. After dropping our baggage, we were hungry and we set off to get some food. I had previously been to Barcelona in 2010 and I remembered La Rambla, which is a tree-lined, pedestrian street with shops and restaurants. I also knew that it was a giant tourist trap but it was the only place that I knew had food where we could sit outside and just eat as soon as possible. We ended up eating at a place called Seventy. The food was a little slow, expensive, and not very good. I should have followed my gut (and not my stomach) and found some other place to eat that was not on La Rambla. In the future, I would just recommend not eating anywhere near there.
The last time I was in Barcelona, I remember taking cable cars up to the top of a hill, visiting a fort, Olympic Park (from the 1992 Olympics), and then walking down the hill. Since Ashley had double knee surgery two months prior, that much walking was not ideal. So we just decided to visit the fort and ride back down. That hill turned out to be Montjuïc and that fort to be Montjuïc Castle. We took the metro to Parallel and then the funicular which is an angled train for going up the steep hillside. Once we got off the funicular, we took the cable cars to the top! At the top, we toured the grounds and interior of Castell de Montjuïc which is a fortification on top of the hill with roots dating back to 1640. The fort and the walls offer spectacular views of Barcelona and Barcelona’s port.
For dinner, we didn’t want to fall into the same trap as lunch so we looked up a few places. It was a little bit of a walk away but we didn’t mind exploring. The place that we had looked at was crowded. We forgot that Catalonians do eat dinner later than we’re used to. We ended up finding a place called Parlament which was near where we had walked to. Dinner was absolutely delicous. We had sangria, tapas, and other delicious food.
Friday morning was an early start. We booked a half-day Montserrat Wine and Tapas tour through Viator and CastleExperience. Before walking to the bus depot, we had breakfast at the hotel. Breakfast was outside in the hotel courtyard inside of a permanent yurt structure. The weather was nice so it felt great. The spread was pretty delicious. One of the things that I miss a lot from Europe is the breakfast sandwiches of salmon, meat, and cheeses. Also, the hotel had one of the fresh squeezed orange juice machines! Check out my post from our Montserrat tour for more details! Once we got back, we were so tired that we just ended up getting room service for dinner.
On Saturday, we had plans to go to La Sagrada Familia which is a beautiful, unfinished Catholic church largely designed by Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi was a brilliant Catalan architect and designer. Several of his designs are located in Barcelona. See more details from my post on La Sagrada Familia! After we saw La Sagrada Familia, we checked out two more of Gaudi’s designs in Barcelona: Casa Mila and Casa Batllo. Casa Mila, popularly known as La Pedrera, It was the last private residence designed by Gaudi and was built between 1906 and 1912. Casa Batllo was a remodel of a previously built house and redesigned in 1904 by Gaudi. After we saw these two buildings, we headed toward another Gaudi site, Parc Güell. Parc Güell is a hillside park designed by Gaudi, built from 1900 to 1914, and officially opened as a public park in 1926. See my post on Parc Güell for more details! After leaving the park, we stopped at nearby Terra Mia for our last dinner in Barcelona. Again, we had sangria, tapas, and other delicious food. Tired and full, we took a taxi back to our hotel before the long flight back to the States on Sunday morning, April 9th.
Check out my personal post for some more photos.
