September 22 – Barcelona, Spain

Today was another one of the days I was most looking forward to on this vacation. Our plan was to visit all of the Gaudi buildings, and I saved it for today as an exciting end to our vacation (and because many other things in Barcelona are closed on Sunday, so it worked well to spend the day inside museums haha) 

I got up around 8am, got ready, and went downstairs for another great breakfast at the hotel. At 9am, we left the hotel and took the metro to Sagrada Familia! The metro stop is literally right next to the church, and I thought this sign was pretty funny considering it is still under construction and they don’t know when it will be completed…

We walked across the street and around to the other side of the building to find the main entrance. Of course, there was a huge line to enter when we arrived, but that didn’t bother us because we pre-purchased our skip-the-line tickets for 10am. They allowed us to enter at 9:45am, and we waited in line for about 10 minutes to pick up the audio guides. Rick Steves does have a written walking tour for Sagrada Familia, but the audio guides on site only cost a few extra Euros, so we decided that would probably allow us to appreciate it more. 

We spent a little over an hour walking around and taking photos. It is such an intricate and beautiful church with incredible details at every turn. I did remember to bring my skirt today, but it turned out that the guards didn’t care if your knees were covered or not. I saw many people inside wearing shorts, so I left my skirt in my purse and walked inside with no trouble.

Here are a bunch of photos from inside and outside the Sagrada Familia:

They were holding Sunday mass in a chapel downstairs, but these windows offered a good view to see inside…

We also walked through the museum in the basement. It was surprisingly interesting- they had photos of the various stages of construction, and they had models on display for how the church will look when it is completed. 

This model shows the premise behind how Gaudi designed the church. It is meant to look like the mirror image of draped ropes hanging down.

Once we were finished, we took the metro to the Passeig de Gracia stop and walked along the Block of Discord up to Casa Batllo.

Casa Batllo was one of the houses that Antonio Gaudi built. It was whimsical and ornate, and there are no straight lines in the structure so all the corners and windows and door frames have rounded edges. The balconies on the front facade are designed to look like Venetian masks.

The line to enter was not too long when we arrived, but we had pre-purchased our tickets anyway. The tickets for Casa Batllo are bought for a specific day, but you can enter at any time, and it included the audio guide as well. We walked through all the floors and up to the roof. There were a lot of stairs involved, but they also have an elevator if you need it (just be prepared to wait a loooong time because the elevator only holds 2-3 people and there is only 1 so it takes a while before it stops at your floor and is empty enough for you to get on lol) 

This was a video display that was really cool to watch. It repeats on a 3-minute loop, and the lights and music were exciting to watch.

After the video display, I walked up these stairs…

to reach the roof! I certainly had never seen a roof or chimney like this before!

We left Casa Batllo around 1pm and were ready for lunch, but surprisingly, there were very few options. We headed in the direction of the next Gaudi house and kept our eyes open for somewhere to eat.

Burberry store (too bad it was closed because it was a Sunday!)

We ended up finding a nice restaurant on the second floor of this fancy, old building.

I ordered the seafood risotto… it was very tasty, and it reminded me of yet another variety of paella (my third in 3 days haha)

We pre-purchased tickets for 3pm to see Gaudi’s other house, Casa Mila. We arrived at 2:20pm and they allowed us to enter early. Since the audio guides had been so helpful at Sagrada Familia and Casa Batllo, we decided to upgrade our tickets for an extra 4 Euros to add the audio guide here. It is interesting to note that people actually live in this building on the lower floors. I couldn’t imagine really living in a public museum like that, but the residents use a separate elevator bank, and visitors are escorted to the museum floors so we weren’t walking through the private apartments. 

Our first stop was to go straight up to the roof. This roof was even more impressive than the one at Casa Batllo! There were tons of stairs going up and down the wavy roofline, and the chimneys all resembled warriors. Yet another example of Gaudi’s creative genius!

The roof also offered great views of the Eixample district.

Once we were finished enjoying the roof, we went down one floor to the attic level. The red brick arches that run throughout the attic were beautiful, and the museum featured lots of information about Antonio Gaudi (some of which we had already learned earlier today at the other buildings haha), and it also had examples of his ergonomic furniture designs.

Our last stop was to the next floor down, which was a furnished apartment. Unlike Casa Batllo, Casa Mila is fully furnished and set up like an apartment at the turn of the century. It was interesting to see how someone would have lived in this building over 100 years ago.

We left around 3:30pm and used our unlimited metro cards to ride the bus back to Placa Catalunya. We decided to head back to the hotel to rest and repack our bags. At 6:30pm, we walked down to Las Ramblas in search of some more souvenirs. I bought a tshirt for my dad, and mom bought a few things too.

Around 8:30, we were hungry for dinner and decided to eat at a tapas restaurant near the top of Las Ramblas. I didn’t get to take photos because we were so hungry that we ate the food before I had a chance to take out my camera haha The food was very good, and it made for a nice last meal in Spain. After dinner, we went back to the hotel around 10pm to finish packing. 

On Monday, we ate our last breakfast at the hotel, and had the hotel concierge call us a taxi to go to the airport. Our flight home was uneventful… we had beautiful views of the southern coast of Spain, and they served lunch midway through the flight.

Well, that’s it folks! I hope you enjoyed reading my review 🙂 Please let me know if you have any other questions about anything! I took over 2,500 photos on this trip, so if there was something else you wanted to see a photo of, let me know and I’ll check to see if I have one.

September 21 – Barcelona, Spain

I woke up at 7:30 and it felt like I was sleeping in haha I ordered mom some coffee from the hotel’s room service and it arrived 10 minutes later. I finished getting dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. Hotel Lleo offers a great breakfast with tons of meats, cheeses, pastries, other breakfast staples, and even wine!

After breakfast, we took the metro to the Gothic Cathedral. Entrance to the church is free as long as you enter before noon, so we made this our first stop to save a little money. We got to the front door of the church and the guard said I needed to cover my knees. Remember that black skirt I carried in my purse every day of the cruise? Well I don’t know why, but I totally forgot to bring it today! Oops! Luckily, there was a lady on the church steps selling thin brightly colored shawls for 2 Euros each, so I bought a pretty one and wrapped it around my waist to cover my knees. I guess it worked out okay in the end because that shawl was lighter and less bulky to carry around for the rest of the day than my original black skirt in its pouch. 

We spent about 30 minutes walking around the cathedral. It was very detailed and pretty, but I was disappointed that there was a La Merce Festival tent set up in the front which blocked the views and made it hard to see the whole facade in one glance.

Famous ducks in the courtyard:

Next, we went down to the marina to see the Columbus Monument, the wave bridge, and the harbor. It was such a beautiful day outside, and there was lots of activity along the waterfront so it was fun to wander around and people watch for a little while.

After that, we went back up the Ramblas to the Boqueria Market. I was greatly looking forward to walking through this market, and it exceeded my expectations! It was very lively and crowded as we were there at lunch time. Vendors were selling everything you can imagine- fish, meat, fruit, veggies, candy, wine, cheese, bread, and more! We bought some fruit juice (I had the orange, strawberry, and pineapple juice and it was delicious!), and wandered around the market.

I thought this vendor was pretty funny… she sold eggs! And a LOT of them!!

I really wanted a crepe for lunch, but the line was too long!

As we were leaving the market, we walked passed a restaurant that caught my eye. It was called Wok and Walk, and they served make-your-own-stir fry dishes in cute take out containers. I picked udon noodles with chicken, mushrooms, and a sweet and sour sauce, and it was great! They cooked it very quickly and I ate my lunch as we walked the rest of the Ramblas and back to the hotel.

We rested at the hotel for a few minutes, and then took a taxi to the Picasso Museum. We arrived at 2:30pm and there was a huge line to enter. Luckily, we had pre-purchased our tickets, allowing us to skip the line. Our scheduled time was at 3pm, but they let us enter when we arrived a half hour early. We read the Rick Steves walking tour along with what was posted on the museum walls, although I found that we really didn’t need Rick Steves because it basically said the same things on the museum walls anyway. We spent about an hour at the museum, and while I enjoyed it, I don’t think it would have been worth waiting on that long line.

After we left the museum, we walked through the Barri Gotic neighborhood back to the Gothic Cathedral to catch the orange route for the HOHO bus, since this was the second of our 2 days on the pass and we had only done one of the routes yesterday. The first half of this route was interesting, but we were bored with the second half as it drives to very spread out sites all over the city and offers very little info on the audio guide. It took us 2 hours to complete this loop, approximately the same timing as yesterday, but yesterday’s itinerary was much better. If you only have one day to see Barcelona and want to do the HOHO buses, I would recommend only doing the Green route and skipping the Orange route!

Las Ramblas

Interesting sculpture near the marina area:

The Olympic Stadium

One thing I did want to point out was that our bus was basically empty. I don’t know if it is because this route is less common or because it was so late in the afternoon, but either way, the upper level had tons of open seats for nearly the entire ride!

We got off the HOHO bus when it got back to Placa Catalunya, and walked back to our hotel by 6pm. We got changed and left for dinner by 7pm. Tonight’s plan was to go back down to the beach for dinner and to watch the fireworks. We rode the metro bus from a stop around the corner from our hotel for 15 minutes to Barceloneta Beach. Our timing was pretty good because we arrived right as the sun was setting.

Once the sun set, we doubled back to the marina harbor area to check out the vendors, restaurants, and a big carnival. We ate dinner outside at a restaurant called Hispano Restaurant. They had a price fixe menu for 18.75 Euro including an appetizer, entree, dessert, and wine.

Patatas bravas

They serve a Catalunyan style of paella mariscos that is made with very thin short noodles (it reminded me of Rice-a-Roni, only much tastier haha). It was very unique and I really liked it since I always prefer pasta over rice anyway! Mom and I both ordered it as our entree, so they brought it out in the pan to show us, and then they divided it up onto two plates for us to eat.

Casaba melon for dessert

After dinner, we walked around the carnival for a little while. 

After that, we walked back down to the beach to get a spot to watch the fireworks. I would say these fireworks were mediocre at best. As someone who has stood on the FDR Drive in Manhattan to watch the Macy’s 4th of July fireworks in person, these fireworks were a bit of a letdown. Apparently they were part of a competition from the La Merce Festival, so that’s why I had somewhat high expectations. The most interesting part was to see the locals react- there were audible oohs and ahhs from the crowd, so I guess the fireworks were pretty good by Spanish standards lol

The fireworks lasted about 20 minutes, then we quickly got a cab back to the hotel. Once again, it was very loud outside the hotel all night with whistles blowing, car horns honking, people screaming, and loud music playing from Placa Catalunya. I think there was actually a concert there for the Festival. After another long day of touring around the city, we were exhausted and managed to fall asleep despite the noise.

Up next: our Gaudi-filled last day in Barcelona!

September 20th – Barcelona, Spain

After 9 long months of planning and 12 incredible days in the Mediterranean, it was time for our cruise to come to an end. Debarkation announcements started at 7am on the overhead speakers. We had ordered room service for between 7:30 and 7:45am. At 7:35, I thought I heard a knock, so I opened the door, but they were knocking on the room next door several times as if no one was answering. They saw me come out but said it was not my food. We still had no delivery by 8am so I called the room service number and they said they tried delivering it but no one answered. I told them what happened and that they obviously tried delivering our food to the wrong room, so they said they would send up the food now. I was starving by this time, so I just ran up to Lido for one last breakfast burrito. I had planned to get room service because I feared long lines on Lido, but there was actually no wait for my burrito. Maybe people assumed it was closed and didn’t try? Or maybe enough people had already gotten off the ship? Anyway, I was back in the room by 8:10 and the food arrived from room service around 8:15am.

We had zone 30 for debarkation, and were called to go down to the lobby to get off the ship right on time at 8:45am. We got our luggage and waited in a loooong line for a taxi for 45 minutes. The taxi cost 25 Euros with the meter running for a 20 minute drive to our hotel. We did a lot of research on where we wanted to stay in Barcelona, and decided to stay near Placa de Catalunya and the top of Las Ramblas at Hotel Lleo. It was a medium-sized hotel which included a fantastic breakfast, and it was relatively inexpensive compared to some of our other options. The lobby and hallways looked newly renovated and were very nice, but the room looked dated. The room had a mini-fridge, flat screen tv, WIFI, and a balcony and it was a nice size, but it didn’t have very many outlets, so luckily we had multi-outlet power adapters or we wouldn’t have been able to charge all our devices each night. 

There is a balcony behind the curtains:

Bathroom on the left, closet and safe straight ahead, front door on the right:

Our room wasn’t ready yet when we arrived at 10:30am, so we put our bags in the locked storage closet and went out to tour the city. We pre-purchased tickets for the red Hop On Hop Off bus online with 2-day passes. My plan was to ride the Green route today so we could see Park Guell. There was a 45 minute wait to board in Placa de Catalunya, and we could see the people waiting to board the Orange route had a similar wait. We were able to exchange our online vouchers for actual tickets right on the bus, but while we were walking to the bus stop, we passed a parked bus on the side of the road which is used as an office, so we had already exchanged our vouchers there. 

This was the line for the Orange line:

Look for these signs on the sidewalk to know where to board the buses:

Finally on the bus, the view of Placa Catalunya from the upper level of the bus:

We spent the next 2 hours riding all over Barcelona and listening to the audio guide. They do provide you with earphones, but I would recommend you bring your own because theirs didn’t look very comfortable. We sat upstairs and were able to take tons of photos along the way…

I think those black and white things are lights, but in the daytime, they just looked like giant eyeballs to me! haha

This route also went passed Sagrada Familia and the other Gaudi buildings, but I will hold off on those photos until I get to the day we visited those sites.

It took close to 2 hours to reach the Park Guell stop on the HOHO bus (it was stop #13 out of 16 stops total). We got off the bus, turned right on the next side street, and walked 10 minutes uphill to reach the park. It was now after 2pm and we hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast at 8am, so we stopped at a small store for bocadillos con chorizo.

That was the first store we saw, and we didn’t know if we would have any other options, so we just ate there. It turns out, a few blocks further up the road, there were several other restaurant options. One of them sold gourmet popsicles, so we got those as a treat for the walk back to the bus after we left the park.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves…. I loved the park! It offered beautiful views of the city, and I loved the Gaudi style of art throughout the park. It was like Alice in Wonderland meets a Gingerbread house. We spent about an hour walking around the park and taking it all in. Unfortunately, it was crazy crowded so that made it a little hard to relax and enjoy the atmosphere, but it was still quite a feast for the eyes!

We stayed at the park until around 3pm, then made our way back to the bus stop to finish the last 3 stops to get back to Placa Catalunya.

We got back to the hotel at 4pm and checked into our room. We unpacked and freshened up and left the hotel at 6:30pm to get dinner. Our plan for tonight was to eat dinner in Placa Espana and watch the magic fountains. We took the metro for 3 stops to Placa Espana, and took our hotel concierge’s advice and ate at Las Arenas. Right when you get upstairs at the subway stop, there is a huge building called Arenas. It used to be a bull ring, and they converted it into a huge shopping center with tons of restaurants. It costs 1 Euro to ride the glass elevators to the top, and you can see a great view of the entire plaza and the city. They upper level has about 10 restaurants, so we walked around looking at the views and deciding where we wanted to eat.

We decided to eat at a restaurant called La Loma. I ordered the paella, and we had an amazing view of the sunset while we ate.

After dinner, we walked over to where they have the magic fountains. Now is a good time to mention that this weekend was the biggest festival of the year in Barcelona, called La Merce Festival. Thousands of people come to Barcelona for this festival, and it made the city extremely crowded. They had a concert outside for a pretty good pop rock band, but this meant that the escalators were closed to access the magic fountains, so we had to detour back around a huge building and up a side street to get to the fountains.

When we finally got to the fountains, it was extremely crowded, but we found a spot to stand and watch the show. 

Unfortunately, another downside to the La Merce festival and the rock concert was that they did not play the music which normally accompanies the fountains. As a result, we thought the fountains were pretty, but we got bored fast and we left by 9:45pm and took a taxi back to the hotel. 

Placa Catalunya was a major hub for the festival, so we could hear people honking their horns and screaming up in our room, but luckily it didn’t disturb our sleep. We went to bed around midnight after a long but exciting first day in Barcelona.