Hey guys !
Today I am going to talk a bit about another passion of mine : travelling. I have explored quite a lot yet, mostly in Europe and North america, but never documented those. So let’s start with my latest trip to date : Barcelona!
In July ( hot hot july) , I went to Barcelona for 2 short days to visit my friend Heidi. She already knows the city quite well, but I didn’t. So we decided we would tour the city one day, and take a day trip to the sea the next day. This is a great plan if you want to rest a bit but still walk around the city, it’s also a great idea if you visit Barcelona in spring or summer and want to benefit from the higher temperatures.
In order to see the most of it we tried to start early ( in spanish times haha) and started our journey around 9 AM. Don’t forget that the spanish eat way later than us ( even for a french girl), they eat lunch around 2PM and dinner around 9PM.
So this is the program of our day:
– Barrio gotic and city centre
– Palau guell
– Eating/snacking at la boqueria : the big market next to the rambla
– Passeig de gracia, architecture walk
– go by our airbnb to settle a bit
– Park guell
– Eating / touring Gracia
– Finishing the day with a beautiful view of the city
few that’s quite a lot, but it gives you an idea of what you can see in one day (note: we walked nearly 30000 steps that day, around 20km , this is a tiring journey, but worth it !!).
Today I am linking up with amanda at runningwithspoons.com, thank you amanda for the link up
Firstly, we took the subway from gracia, the district we were staying at,to Jaime, in the barrio gotic. We arrived there around noon ( we stopped for a breakfast in gracia first…) and walked around the district of the barrio gothic for a little hour. This is just enough to grasp some of the “gothic” barcelona. If you’re better at getting up than me, I would greatly encourage you to start with a tour of Barcelona. There are probably a lot of them, but I have done the ” free tours”with sandeman in lots of cities and never been disapointed so you could try this, if you want some storytelling about barcelona.
Otherwise here are some views from our little walking trough Barrio gothic
Barrio gotic and the city centre :
A little bridge between two old buildings
An inner patio
The back of the cathedral ( which I couldn’t get in) -> don’t do like me, have at least a little jacket with you and a skirt that goes untile your knees ( shorts and a tank top won’t do ^^)
and up the Rambla : beware, looooooooots of tourists = lots of pickpockets. It is a nice street, but you can avoid it …
And on the Rambla, in a little side street you’ll find the Palau guell which we visited. It’ was actually Mr Guell’s Mansion, designed by the famous architect Gaudi. From the outside it’s not as beautiful as the other “Gaudi houses” , but if you like architecture it has really great examples of gaudi’s architecture, and the price is cheaper than other houses. I think it is because it’s publicly owned ? Anyway, It’s totally worth a visit in my opinion
Palau Guell’s pictures
A detail of the main living room’s ceiling
another very beautiful ceiling
The roof of the Palau guell
After visiting the Palau Guell we went up the Rambla until the boqueria market where we made a stop for a quick lunch break. I’d heard lot’s of great impressions about la boqueria. I was not as impressed as I thought I would be. It’s not as authentic as it sounds, and lot of shops sell products that don’t seem very local. Nervertheless, it’s a great stop for a lunch at any time and you can buy little snacks all over the market which is very convenient. And the stands are very photogenic 🙂
La Boqueria
After the rambla if you take the street up , leaving the sea behind you, you will arrive at the placa de catalunya. One of the biggest places of Barcelona. From there, you have to take the street ” passeig de gracia ” to do what I called and “architecture walk”
Gaudi, Barcelona’s most well known architect designed several ” palaces” which you can see in this street. Passeig de gracia is also like new york 5th avenue or Paris’s Champs elysées, it’s a street where you’ll find luxiourous stores
Here are some of Gaudi’s palaces we walked by, some of them you can actually visit !
Gaudi’s palaces
Mila’s palace
Casa batlo , the most colorful and most beautiful in my opinion
a solid hour passed before we walked all the passeig de gracia and then we arrived in the district of gracia were we had our airbnb.
We walked around our neigbourhoud for a bit and made a little break at our apartment.
Little places of gracia
To finish the day we made a reservation to visit parc guell. Which happens to be just around the corner of our airbnb. Be smart and book your trip before you arrive. A lot of monuments in Barcelona can be booked in advance and it is very useful when you need to organize a quick trip. I visited Barcelona twice, and I preferred Parc guell at sunset. It’s probably great very early in the morning too, but I am not an early bird like that ^^
And finally to finish the day on a great note , we went to a bar that I loved :
Mirablau
It’s really really worth a visit
Great cocktails, great views, a top notch night club and a lots of locals. I loved it. And we even did a Bachelorette’s party there which was great.
And that’s a wrap up of my first day in Barcelona
Have you been to barcelona ?
