Beautiful Barcelona

After a sun-filled month of July on the beaches of Greece, Montenegro and Croatia, we were excited for a change of pace and ready to get back to a city with more to do and see. Time for Barcelona…

Pro tip: If you’re planning a trip there, be sure to book tickets in advance for the major tourist attractions (i.e. Sagrada Família). This was the first major European city we experienced and didn’t realize many of the prime time slots for things we wanted to see were already sold out, so we had to take what we could get.

Highlights of what we did and saw while in Barcelona:

• La Sagrada Família – easily the most impressive gothic style church in the world. We were both in awe touring the inside.
• La Boqueria Market – Barcelona’s Pike Place. Great little market. We went here multiple times and ate our way through it trying fried anchovies, fresh juice, gelato, etc.
• Picasso Museum –had more than 100 Picassos. I think Travis stopped paying attention after the 65^th but don’t worry he kicked back in around the 90^th.
• La Rambla – roamed this main street checking out the shops and people watching.
• Park Güell – full of the artist Gaudi’s sculptural work.
• Casa Batlló – Gaudi designed building, well worth checking out.
• Gothic Quarter – roamed the neighborhood, great architecutre and historical buildings.
• Paella cooking class – the advertisement had us at “unlimited sangria”

After three months in South America speaking *some* Spanish followed by two months in Turkey/Greece/Montenegro/Croatia knowing none of the local language, getting to Spain was a treat. We could slightly understand people and at the least exchange general pleasantries and read menus. This helped so we could devour all the delicious meats and churros we could find…and be “we” I mean Travis.

Throughout our couple of days in Barcelona we walked nearly everywhere and only rode the metro once. This allowed us to get in 6-10 miles of walking each day which is actually a treat when you don’t have gym access.

Barcelona has SO much to offer and is one of our top favorite cities from our trip! We’ve already decided it will be one we go back to in the coming years to pull more experiences from.