I have to level with you — arriving last night in Barcelona, I was VERY sketched out by our Airbnb. We were on a street that looked like an alley with tattoo shops and graffiti. The door to the apartment building was off the hinges and broken. On the outside, it basically looked like a flophouse. This is something that would typically send me running but I really tried to give it a shot. It was after midnight and we had nowhere else to stay that night. Thankfully, the inside was really nice and as pictured on the Airbnb website. But that didn’t really make up for it — I’m pretty conservative when it comes to safety, and my threshold was definitely at it’s limit. We woke up and began the day with some sandwiches to go (tomato for me, ham for Claire) and we walked to the train to head to Sant Sadurni d’Anoia for our Cava tour. We finally found an ATM that worked for Claire (not for me) so we were back in the green.
We took a train 45min and arrived in a cute town where we walked for about 10min to get to Recaredo. I had booked us a tour in advance and we got lucky since it was a weekday, we were treated like VIPs on our own private tour (that’s just how I roll). They took us down to the cellar and walked us through the process of making cava. Everything, aside from the growing of the grapes, was done in this one building where it has been since 1924, and almost the entire process was executed by hand. It was all really interesting. At the end of the tour, we tasted three different cavas, each was really different but very tasty. I absolutely loved it!
The tour guide told us about a Chocolate factory nearby as well so we popped over there to see what they had going on. Even though it was almost 1, none of the places were open for lunch yet because: Spain. We did a little shopping at the Simone Coll Chocolate Factory and decided to find some lunch and then come back for their tour at 3pm. For lunch, we went super simple with Doner Kebabs and fries. Then we went back to the factory for their tour and tasting. Afterward, we left Sant Sadurni d’Anoia stuffed and happy.
When we got back to the city, we dropped off our goodies at the Airbnb and went to the Barcelo Raval Hotel to get drinks on their rooftop bar, which gave us amazing, 360-degree views. As you remember, I wasn’t all the pumped about our dilapidated Airbnb, so we took the opportunity to formulate a plan to find somewhere else to stay for the last night (more on that in a sec). For dinner, we had Mexican — one of our favorite types of food — at Rosa del Raval. We had super-tasty tacos and guac with some strong drinks. We ended the night at a speakeasy recommended to us by a friend called Paradiso. You enter the bar through a false fridge door and inside is a whole new world. The drink menu is extensive and the bartenders are real mixologists. We waited for a few minutes until a couple seats at the bar opened up and then we got to watch the show (attractive bartenders making crazy complicated drinks). This is one of my favorite bars to date…anywhere!
Our last full day started with a brunch recommended by Zanna Van Djke (her blog and Insta are great) at Hammock Juice Station where I had a delicious acai bowl and Claire had oats. It was probably our healthiest meal of the trip and was totally dairy free, but still so full of flavor.
From there we decided to check out some architecture since Barcelona is known for the work of Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi was a modernist architect with a unique eye for detail. As you’ll see in some of these photos, his work is pretty easily recognizable. We hit our first Gaudi stop at Casa Bottlo and then walked to Gaudi’s most famous piece, the Sagrada Familia (a very old church). The Sagrada is a big tourist stop and we were told to reserve our tickets in advance and thank goodness we did. We got there at noon for our assigned time to enter and the entire day was already sold out by then. We picked up our audio guides and then went up into the towers to check out the views (they are very tall and have amazing views of the city). When we got back down the winding staircase, we took the audio guide tour around the church to learn more about this crazy building that’s taken over 100 years to build. They began building it when Gaudi was alive and plan on having it done within the next few years...they say ;).
When we finished, we scooted over to our final walking tour of the trip. This tour dug more into the history of Spain, Christopher Columbus, and the different rulers in Spain. It was really interesting and we got to cover a lot of ground. It started raining near the end and we were eager to get back to the Airbnb and book a new hotel for the evening so we ran back to take care of that.
When we got back, we used the Hotel Tonight app to book a room at a cute boutique hotel and we cancelled the last night at our Airbnb. The host was very helpful and was totally willing to refund us, as she knew the door being broken was an issue for us. Claire and I took the LONG walk to our new hotel and couldn’t be happier when we arrived. The room was gorgeous, they gave us some welcome Cava and we showered and got ready for our last evening. We walked to the Villa de Gracia neighborhood and ended up at Amelie for our final tapas feast. We had potatoes, the most delicious roasted veggies with hummus, chicken skewers and cod fritters (SO GOOD). Then we went over to Elephanta for some Gin and Tonics — not usually my drink of choice but, again: SO GOOD. I need to explore more gin in the US because it was delicious.
On our last day, we woke up super early to get to the Park Guell by 8am. We wanted to tackle it before the tourists and also have time to get back to our hotel to shower before checkout. Turns out that worked out very well for us; we had a cab bring us all the way there (avoiding a majorly steep hill we would have walked) and we got in before they set up the ticket booths which meant that we didn’t have to pay to enter the Gaudi section (win win!). After seeing everything inside, we walked out to another section of the park where we found a tower that we could climb up for an amazing view all the way out to the ocean and beach. It looked so far away! Little did we realize that we’d be doing that full walk just a few hours later.
We walked the 2 miles back to the hotel from there, showered, packed up, and checked out, leaving our bags with the hotel. Then we went to brunch. We tried Al Sur Cafe (another on Zanna’s brunch guide) and HOLY MOLY - it was mouthwatering.
From there we decided to check out some architecture since Barcelona is known for the work of Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi was a modernist architect with a unique eye for detail. As you’ll see in some of these photos, his work is pretty easily recognizable. We hit our first Gaudi stop at Casa Bottlo and then walked to Gaudi’s most famous piece, the Sagrada Familia (a very old church). The Sagrada is a big tourist stop and we were told to reserve our tickets in advance and thank goodness we did. We got there at noon for our assigned time to enter and the entire day was already sold out by then. We picked up our audio guides and then went up into the towers to check out the views (they are very tall and have amazing views of the city). When we got back down the winding staircase, we took the audio guide tour around the church to learn more about this crazy building that’s taken over 100 years to build. They began building it when Gaudi was alive and plan on having it done within the next few years...they say ;).
I had an egg sandwich on a doughnut and Claire had a grilled cheese french toast with avocado. This place would definitely have an insane line if it were in NY. Then we began our journey to the beach with a few stops on the way (another big, triumphal Arch and the park).
This was the final day to check those items off our list and it was a gorgeous one for it. The sun was shining, our feet were sore, but making our way through the city on foot all the way to the water was worth it. I think coming back in the summertime is still on my travel list. After the beach, we began the journey back to the hotel (another 2+ miles).
We retrieved our bags, and took a cab to the square where we would grab our airport bus. We had some tea and coffee, grabbed some 100 Montaditos for the trip and were on our way. Our journey back on the budget airline was an interesting one. We were supposed to leave for Newark at 6:30 and we ended up being bound for JFK at 8pm (the later time was annoying but JFK was easier for us so we took it). The inside of the plane was perfectly fine but when they say budget, they really mean no frills (or basic necessities like water) whatsoever. Budget is fine for quick 1-2hr flights, but for a 9hr journey where they don’t even give you water for free you might want to reconsider. I was very nervous about being thirsty on the flight so I filled up 2 big bottles at the airport and drank a bunch of water before we took off. The sandwiches plus a bar of chocolate kept us full, but we were feeling all sorts of ways when we landed. Then we spent an hour on the tarmac at JFK because there was no gate for us to deplane. Getting into bed that night had never felt so good.
