The coolest aspect of living in London is that a two-hour flight can take you somewhere completely foreign and far more different than what you can experience after a two-hour flight in America. Tassa and I just came back from a weekend trip to Barcelona, Spain. Sure, we could have spent more time there, but we are weekend travelers and learning to maximize a 48 hour tour de force itinerary. We had a great time and picked up some travel tricks along the way. We really needed this trip to get back out there and remember why we moved over here in the first place. We also needed to get away from the cold, rainy, and dreary London winter. Ironically, it was forecasted to rain all weekend in Barcelona and was colder than it was in London, but whatever, we were still stoked to add the 11th European country to our travel journal.
The main lesson that I learned from this trip was that any time you try to save a bit of money or add an extra step thinking it will be more convenient, it usually doesn’t work out. I had to book an evening flight on Friday since we both work all day. We had a 7:20 pm flight out of Heathrow Friday night arriving in Barcelona at 10:30pm. It’s only a two-hour flight but there is a time difference and Spain is an hour ahead. Since it was a late arrival, I decided to book a cheap hotel room near the airport. I guess cheaper is never a great option because there is always an issue. I booked a room at the Ibis Budget Aeropuerto Viladecans near the Barcelona airport. It was cheap and we have had good experiences with Ibis hotels in the past, however, this room was not that great. It wasn’t horrible. It was clean, which is the most important thing. The main issue was that it was hot, and the air didn’t work, or perhaps was turned off until the summer season. It also cost 24 euros to get form the airport to the hotel. My logic was that it was going to be late when we arrived so we should just stay close to airport, get a good night sleep, and head into the city center and our next hotel early Saturday morning. In retrospect, we should have just gone to one hotel and skipped the one close to the airport. I did save on the room, but I spent double on the rides because I had to pay another 25 euros Saturday morning to get to our second hotel. Plus, we didn’t sleep well. Our second hotel was another Ibis in the city center near the Basilica Sagrada Familia Cathedral and this hotel was great!
We got to check in early at the Ibis Barcelona Centro (Sagrada Familia) Saturday morning. Ibis is generally a really good hotel for the money. The budget one wasn’t great, but this one was really nice and included breakfast. We dropped off our stuff in the room and took off to explore Barcelona. We were only a 5-minute walk from the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. This is a huge church in the center of Barcelona, with tall spires that had large ornaments on them. The church is almost indescribable. We have seen some insane churches, the best being in Strasbourg, France but this one is in the top three we have seen thus far for sure. The church is the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world. Construction started in 1882 and is scheduled to finally be completed in 2026. Imagine that!
Right across the street from Sagrada Familia was a F.C. Barcelona exhibit and fan shop. This is one of the top football clubs in the world. The home of Messi! We had planned on going to the famous football team’s stadium and museum, but a new stadium is being built and we were told it is sort of a mess at the moment. So, we opted not to travel the distance across to the other side of the city to see it under construction. We had an opportunity to get our picture taken with the 2015 Champions League Cup, with a bonus of being able to touch the sacred trophy. It was one of those deals where they take your picture and then you can buy it and get a digital copy. We didn’t purchase the picture but seeing and touching the cup was cool. I added a Barcelona jersey to my growing collection, with one of my all-time favorite players name and number – Lewandowski #9.
After that, we walked the two and a half miles down to the Gothic Quarter section of the city. This is the old town with old streets and narrow alleys. It was also near the sea, and we walked around the beach too. Tassa and I absolutely love exploring all of these European cities on foot. Walking around and taking everything in is such a great experience. There are always hop on, hop off tour bus options, but you really get to experience a place on foot. Europe is made for this too because all of these cities have older sections with all the sights, sounds, smells, and tastes that you want to take in. The outskirts are more contemporary and less interesting. Walking around, we discuss the architecture and go into shops. It’s really fun. In Barcelona, we went down to the beach and had a light lunch of garlic shrimp and drinks at the Mar Beach Restaurant. But the main culinary activity would be later in the evening.
We overdid it a bit though. After walking around 12 miles, we went back to the hotel and had a rest. We had a food tour booked for 6pm and I thought the meeting point was a six-minute walk from our hotel. I was wrong. The company office or something was near our hotel but the meeting point for the tour was back down in the Gothic Quarter, which was a two and half mile walk away. We could have taken an Uber, but luckily, I got up and checked the meeting point on Google maps in time to get ready and walk down to the El Molino Theater to meet Boris, our tour guide.
I booked the Food Lover Tour – Barcelona online prior to our trip. I was really excited for this tour, and it lived up to my expectations. We have found that tours really enhance the experience of traveling because you get history and stories that you wouldn’t otherwise know. We met up with our tour guide and five other people. There was a couple from Philadelphia, two ladies from England, two more Americans – a woman who has been living in Ireland for 15 years and her friend, who was visiting from Florida, and then a random guy who had recently moved to Barcelona from Paris. It is always a bit awkward meeting new people like this at first, but after the first glass of wine everyone warmed up and we enjoyed some great conversations along with our food and drinks.
The tour consisted of four tapas bars/restaurants. We learned a bit about the neighborhoods and the history of Spanish tapas. Basically, tapas are food that accompanies drinking alcohol. The basic premise was that as you drank you needed to eat and absorb the alcohol. The name tapa comes from the fact that they used to put the plate on top of your drink to keep the dust and dirt out. Over the years, tapas have sort of evolved into an art form. There is a wide range of tapas, but they are small dishes that really consist of a bite of food. We had sardines on a tomato slice and fried fish nuggets that were amazing. We had chorizo and cheeses. Fried fritters with a pork filling but with the look and texture of sweet potatoes. There were some weird ones like tuna potato salad and a fried spinach ball with a dollop of sauce on the top. Overall, the food was amazing. We also had Spanish red and white wines, sangria, and vermouth, all of which had their own historical place in Spanish culture. Everything was really great. The coolest thing about the tour were the restaurants themselves. They were more like bars and two of them were really old and two were relatively new. We wouldn’t have gone into any of these places to be honest without knowing what they were. However, the experience at each place was worth the price of the tour in and of themselves. Can’t recommend the Food Lovers Tour enough.
After the tour we made that trek back to our hotel, capping our daily walking mileage at 15+. We definitely over did it. We were really exhausted. When we woke up, we were still exhausted. We had some breakfast at the hotel, checked out, and walked back down to the Gothic Quarter and beachfront. However, this time we took a different street down and passed through the Arc de Triomf and explored the Parc de la Ciutadella. Everything was lovely with Spanish architecture and gardens. The Barcelona Zoo is located in the park, as well.
After walking around the park, we again were feeling pretty sore from the day before. Like I said, we over did it a bit. We enjoyed sitting on a bench by the bay and people watching. Then we walked down to the beach and went to the Sea Breeze restaurant. I had a couple of Spanish cervezas I hadn’t seen before, and we shared some paella. We learned on the food tour that paella was a common food made from leftovers. People didn’t waste food, and paella was a dish of the people. Now it is a staple in most restaurants and not the cheapest thing on the menu. It was ok. I think we should have gone to a proper restaurant in the city and had a better recommended paella but for what it was worth, it was good. We sat there a while and watched the busy beach scene. Then we took a public bus to the airport.
We got lucky with the weather. It did rain but mostly at night and not when we were out and about. All day Saturday it was overcast and chilly but not cold. However, the sun did come out Sunday afternoon as we waited at the airport. We were literally laying around outside on some steps in a food courtyard basking in the sun. I went in to use the restroom and I checked the board to see if our gate was posted yet. Well, it was, and the plane was boarding. I ran back to get Tassa and rip her away from the sunshine. You really do not understand how much the sun impacts you until you live in England, where it disappears for months. We had to rush to find our gate, which was not near where we were. We got there with a few minutes to spare. It would have been an epic failure if we missed that stupid plane.
Two hours later we were back home in London. The Elizabeth line ride from Heathrow to Ilford was almost as long as the flight but we made it home around 8pm. Just in time to get cleaned up and get some sleep before work in the morning. The 48-hour weekend warrior travel method suits me just fine. Get in, get out, and take in as much as possible while you’re there. Can’t beat it. Hasta luego!
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