Barcelona

Our first week was spent in Barcelona, and we stayed in the Gothic Quarter on Calle de la Portaferrissa, near Calle del Duc. Although it is a very busy street, the apartment was on the fifth floor (with an elevator, fortunately), so the noise never bothered us. We absolutely loved the Gothic Quarter! It has an amazing, magical quality, with history around every corner. A few times I went out in the early morning, exploring and taking photos, and still never got to see the whole area. If we ever return to Barcelona I would absolutely stay in the Gothic Quarter again.

Barcelona has a bit of a reputation for crime these days — even the woman who rented us the apartment warned us to be very careful! We had no problems at all, but visiting big cities always calls for the usual precautions. Don't flash money around, don't keep a wallet in your back pocket, don't leave things unattended on tables, don't wear your purse over one shoulder etc. Also, having a toddler with us meant that we didn't go out late at night, which eliminated some crime risk.

The metro system is great – it seemed easy to navigate and was quite efficient. We had to book and print some tickets train tickets, and found Workcenter at Carrer de Roger de Llúria, 2 a useful place for this.

What we saw and did

Las Ramblas: Sure it's crowded and touristy, but still worth checking out! We've never seen so many "statue" performance artists. Apparently it's a hotspot for petty crime, but we had no problems.

La Sagrada Familia: Not to be missed. It's still under construction, so the cranes outside were a bit distracting. I'm sure someday it will be finished. The inside is incredible — visually stunning, with a beautiful light. We bought our tickets online, which saved us a wait in a pretty long lineup.

La Bocquería: If you're in the area and like markets, check this out for sure – it is probably the most amazing market we've ever seen. The produce looks like it's ready for a photoshoot. Lots of fresh juice (€3 close the entrance, €2 further inside), as well as seafood, meat, cheese, and the amazing Jamon Iberico (more on that later). A word of warning: don't touch the produce! Ask, and someone will get it for you. This protocol was unknown to us, but fortunately we learned the lesson by seeing some other guy get a finger-wagging scolding!

Parc Güell: This is a must-see for fans of Gaudí's unique and fun architecture. The one drawback is that being such a popular attraction it was really crowded, which kind of detracted from the enjoyment of the space. Still, worth the effort though.

Casa Batlló: Another Gaudí site that is worth checking out.

Museo de Picasso: A great representation of his Picasso's early work.

Kid Stuff

L’Aquàrium de Barcelona: Lots of interesting things to see here, and a chance to check out a bit of Barcelona's waterfront. It was a pretty easy walk from the foot of las Ramblas.

Parc de la Ciutadella: A beautiful place to wander about, and on the way there we bought some incredible chocolate at Brunells (Carrer de la Princesa, 22 near Carrer Montcada). We should have bought more.

Playgrounds: We found four small playgrounds walking distance to our apartment, which were a welcome distraction for a 3-year-old. If you happen to be in the same neighbourhood and have kids, this where to find them:

Carrer de la Canuda and Carrer d'En Bot (there's a roman tomb there as well)

Carrer de la Canuda and Carrer de Ripoll

Carrer de Carme and Carrer de les Floristes de la Rambla

Carrer de les Ramelleres just north of Carrer d'Elisabets

The view from our flat.

There are many curiosities on Las Ramblas!

And lots to see in the Gothic Quarter.

 

Roman tombs at Carrer de la Canuda and Carrer d'En Bot

La Bocquería. Best market ever!

Parc Güell is unlike any other park we've been to.

Casa Batlló. More Gaudí fun!

La Sagrada Familia: front, back and inside

And some other interesting architecture in Barcelona.

And we're off...

This is a brief overview of our trip to Spain, from Sept 27–Dec 7, 2011, a total of ten weeks. This blog is written somewhat after the fact, but hopefully some of the information is still relevant and helpful. We had our 3 1/2 year old daughter with us, so the adventure and activities tended to be more child-centered – many playgrounds, not so much fine dining! We still had a lot of fun.

Spain is an incredibly beautiful country, and the people were always friendly. We visited five cities–Barcelona, Gran Alacant (near Alicante), Granada, Sevilla, and Madrid, and did our best to see as much as we could. All of our accommodations were apartments that we found and booked online, and fortunately they were all very good. No unpleasant surprises! There are a many sites with information on Spain, but a couple we found useful for finding and booking accomodations were homelidays.co.uk and granadainfo.com, and for general information and research, madridman.com and andalucia.com were good.

Most of the major cities offer some kind of city pass such as the Barcelona Card etc. It's probably a good deal if you're planning to see a lot in a short period of time, but it wasn't worth it for us. Within Spain we travelled by mostly by train. Pre-booking through the Renfe site  is a good idea. There were great discounts on some routes that are only offered online. This site was very helpful in the online booking process. There were no direct trains from Alicante to Granada, and the bus trip seemed like it might be a bit much with a toddler, so we rented a car from National Car Rental/Atesa. The driving was great, but dropping off the car in Granada was not so easy. More on that later though. 

We needed to get a mobile phone that would work in Spain, and bought an inexpensive, pay-as-you-go mobile at Yoigo that fit our needs perfectly.

Enjoy the blog. Hopefully some of this is useful to fellow travellers, and comments and questions are welcome. With a bit of luck we will return some day soon and explore more of the Spain!

All photographs are Copyright 2011.