I love love love Barcelona! We both do, and hope to make it back someday. As I mentioned before, my parents offered to look after the kids so Shamus and I could get away. We already knew that we wanted to visit Barcelona so on the friday night before we left Shamus went ahead and booked our train tickets. Booking a hotel was not so easy. For whatever reason, we could not find anything available in our price range. Everything was either already booked or cost more than 500 euros/night. When we had been browsing the previous week, there were lot’s of available rooms including some very reasonably priced ones. It seemed strange that nothing would come up now that we were ready to book. Most people might see this as a clue or a sign, but not us. We thought, what the hell! We’ll figure it out when we get there. Our train tickets were booked anyhow so there was no going back. The next morning my Dad drove us to Nîmes to catch the 9:30 TGV train and we would arrive in Barcelona by 2 pm. Surely we would find a place when we got there.
I love riding the train. Nice comfy seats, snacks, big windows and beautiful scenery. It’s calm and easy. Especially with only one carry-on suitcase, not 5 giant ones. Once we arrived at the train station in Barcelona, we looked for free Wi-Fi. This usually ends up being at McDonalds, a hot travel tip courtesy of my parents. We immediately got on task finding a room and the only thing available was on Hotwire. Hotwire is a discount travel website that offers good deals but without giving you many details. So basically we knew the area and the price but that was about it. There was one room available for 30 euros a night and absolutely nothing else to be found so we booked it for 3 nights. Shortly after, we recieved our confirmation. That’s when we noticed that we had booked into a hostel! WTF!!! This was our romantic weekend after all, how could we be booked into a hostel!!! It’s been more than 15 years since I have slept in a hostel!
With cancellations not allowed on cheap bookings, we decided to go check it out. What else could we do? We needed a place to sleep. We got a metro pass and hopped on the subway. The one thing we noticed was how much easier it was to travel on the subway without 3 kids. No near-death experiences this time and the accordion player was enjoyable.
We arrived at the hostel and I have to say, it was the most beautiful hostel I had ever seen. Definitely a place you want to be if you’re in your 20’s and single and bumming your way through Europe.
We went to the front desk to inquire about our reservation. We were asked if we had booked a private room. I immediately said yes thinking (hoping) that was the case and we would have a room to ourselves after all. Wrong! We were in fact in separate bunk beds and on separate floors!!! The woman at the front desk informed us of a conference beginning on sunday in Barcelona. It was the Mobile World Congress and they were expecting 90 000 people to attend!! One of the key note speakers was Mark Zuckerberg. (You might have heard of him, he invented Facebook). Anyway, it meant that every hotel room in the city was booked, and if you were lucky enough to find a room the price would be jacked up anyhow. It all made sense now, why we couldnt find anything. Having that mystery solved seemed to make Shamus happy. So much so that it didn’t even matter to him that we would be bunking with complete strangers for the whole weekend. Probably because at one point I heard the front desk girl say that Shamus would be sharing a room with 7 other girls. I offered to switch with him but he replied no, he was ok with the bunk he was assigned. Anyhow, we unpacked our bags, locked up our personal items in the locker under the bed and decided to get out explore the city.
Our first stop was to check out Segrada Familia, a church designed by the famous modernist catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. This thing is truly unbelievable and indescribable. It started being built in 1882 and it is still not complete (that’s more than a century! ). The anticipated completion of the roman catholic church is in 2026. As we walked past we noticed the line up went all the way around the church and was not moving. We decided to buy tickets online and visit inside the church on Monday morning, hoping it would be a lot less busy.
Afterwards we headed to La Rambla, the most popular street in central Barcelona. It is filled with tourists as well as locals and is lined with expensive stores, souvenir shops and a lot of restaurants. It’s busy and fun to walk down. Once hunger hit we veered off to a side street to find a more affordable and slightly less touristy restaurant. It was around 6pm but the restaurant was oddly empty. We asked the hostess where all the people were and she answered that they had actually just finished eating lunch. Supper usually didn’t start until 9 or 10pm. Since we were starving we decided to stay and eat.
We ordered a bottle of red wine but realised our Spanish or Catalan (the language they mostly speak in Barcelona) wasn’t so great when the waiter popped the cork. We had in fact ordered a bottle of Champagne! I guess it’s a common beverage with the locals so I don’t think we looked too much like idiots.
We managed to stay up till midnight I think, which is when the party really gets going but midnight is all I’ve got in me these days. Shamus and I said goodnight and then headed back to our respective bunks. I’m relieved to say that 7 girls did not show up to Shamus’s room. Better luck next time(:
Since supper is at 10pm or later, they don’t really do the breakfast thing in Barcelona. Not at 8am anyhow. We were lucky to find this outdoor square with a handful of restaurants that were open. We sat outside and enjoyed a coffee and some delicious huevos rancheros at ‘Amélie’s’. The weather was perfect and I loved how the streets are lined with orange trees.
We walked many kilometres and packed a lot in that day. We had planned to visit the Picasso museum and during his research Shamus discovered that the entry is free on the first sunday of every month. Lucky for us we were there on that specific day! Apparently we weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the free entry… this was the line up when we arrived.
The line up moved relatively quickly and there were entertainers playing music in the streets so it was fine. However once we got to the front of the line we realised that it only got us the tickets to get in. We were told to come back at a specific time, sort of like making an appointment. So we got our tickets and killed time by wandering the streets some more and stopping for refreshments along the way.
We made it to the Picasso museum for our ‘viewing appointment’ and enjoyed it very much. Once we stumbled out of there, it was time for a snack and a drink at a Tapas bar.
I love this concept! There is an array of appetizers lined up on the bar and on the counter plus a few waiters going around with tapas filled trays. You grab whatever you want, whenever you want. Once you’re done and ready to pay, the waiter counts the amount of cocktail sticks on your plate. The price per tapa was set at 2 euros each. I thought it was a perfect way to spend the afternoon but one gets a little dozy after a cocktail and a few tapas. We were headed back to our bunk beds for a little rest before heading out for the evening when we came across Cuitadella Park, Barcelona’s version of Central Park.
It was filled with people having picnics, dancing, drumming, tightrope walking and playing music. There were kids, teenagers, young adults, families…. Everywhere we looked there was something to see. There were also some semi-shady guys walking around selling cold Estrella’s for 1.50 euros. On such a beautiful afternoon, of course we could not resist. I’m not sure how they kept the beers cold because I noticed they kept their inventory in plastic bags, stashed in the nearby bushes. Afterwards it was warm enough to lay down in the grass and doze off for a few minutes, enough to get the tired edge off and continue on walking around.
Meanwhile, back at home the kids were having a vacation of their own, Mémère and Pépère style.
We finished the evening by eating at a mexican restaurant (this time it was 9pm when we headed out for supper). What a day!!!
The French Door 
