A Breathtaking few days in Barcelona

As some of you may know, I travelled to Barcelona 2 weeks ago for a wonderful five days; I took tons of photos and videos which I wanted to document to share with all of you, and hopefully inspire some people to visit the gorgeous city.

We stayed in a hotel in Salou which is about an hour and a half outside Barcelona, so the bus journey there every day was a little bit torturous – but towards the end of the week it was pretty useful to catch up on missed sleep!

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On the first day we arrived around lunch time, so firstly we stopped in Maremagnum mall for a quick lunch and little bit of a shopping trip before heading to the aquarium.

A fun fact about me is I don’t think I’ve ever actually been to an aquarium before that day so I was pretty entertained by it all. As you’ll see in the travel diary at the end of this post, part of the aquarium had a big glass tunnel where you could see fish swimming all around you and even above your head!

As much as our hotel wasn’t the best place I’ve ever stayed, the rooftop view was absolutely beautiful. A couple of my friends and I managed to get out at sunset and view this incredible sight which was definitely worth it.

Our second day was jam packed. We got a bus tour of Barcelona and saw so many of the infamous sights, the first one being the Olympic stadium from 1992.

I can’t actually remember the name of this park (please comment if you know!) but it had a beautiful view of the ocean and some of the city below. We stopped for a bit to listen to a busker singing and he sang towards my phone when I videoed him and he was so funny!

The last stop on the bus tour was La Sagrada Familia Cathedral. They were doing work on it, so the construction kind of ruined the photos but it’s still incredible! We learned all about Antonio Gaudí who seemed to basically design most of Barcelona – so he’s pretty talented, am I right?

Next we went to arguably the most famous part of Barcelona – Las Ramblas markets. The street stretches 1.2km and is filled with souvenirs, food and local produce. If you ever visit I really recommend trying one of the juices they sell; I got a mango and lemon one which was delicious!

On another note, this market is notorious for pickpockets – so always be aware of your stuff and your surroundings.

There can also be a lot of dodgy people, my friend and I got approached multiple times on this trip and on Las Ramblas we were asked to go to someone’s “Beach club”! Let’s say he definitely did not own one of them. Travelling in groups of at least 2-3 is probably the safest option so just be incredibly careful!

Our final stop in Barcelona on the first full day was the stunning Parc Guell. Also designed by Gaudí, once again there are breathtaking views and really interesting architecture. Super pretty to take a walk around!

After travelling back to Salou we grabbed a bite to eat from the hotel and headed bowling (which I got a couple of strikes/spares…without the bumpers!)

To start off day 3, we went to the Monserrat Monastery and mountains. Let me tell you, they are MAGESTIC. I think I fell in love with them, I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere more beautiful (other than Venice!) and this was one of my favourite moments of the trip, I just had to include lots of photos!

I said the view from Parc Guell was breathtaking; but Monserrat was something else. The weather was perfect too, it was simply dreamy wandering around the place with the bright sun shining down on us and beauty everywhere we turned.

Another thing is I’m so proud of myself for asking for a knife in Spanish and not getting shot back at with English (which was about the only time the entire trip!) If you visit here – the chocolate croissant was absolutely mouth-watering.

After spending a magical morning in Monserrat, we headed to Barcelona to visit the Camp Nou stadium. This was prime ‘make my dad jealous’ moment! He texted me that morning to tell me to enjoy it, which I proceeded to send him many photos of it (hehe).

It’s huge, the biggest stadium in Europe and 3rd biggest in the world according to capacity. We discovered this more and more as we toured around freely – it never seemed to end!

That night we attended a very… interesting (?!) magic show. This is the only photo I got there as it was no photography, but to be honest it kind of describes the night. I was a little bit confused, I think we all were, by the whole thing. It was pretty good and we got free unlimited drinks which is a plus I guess?

For our final day we didn’t have to do an hour and a half bus journey – hooray!!!

As we were staying in Salou, we were close to PortAventura the theme park and if you know me you know I love them!

We spent the day going around different rollercoasters, but I’m not going to lie; by the time we got round to the biggest ones, I’d drained out my adrenaline rush and couldn’t hack anymore so didn’t end up on them, but the day was amazing anyway!

The only thing was I did something typical of myself… I forgot my money. I’m glad I didn’t end up losing it as I thought I did as it was just in my hotel room but no one was surprised it was me of all people who did that.

Of course – I also ended up soaked from the water rides! We got some very judgemental looks from some better prepared Spaniards in ponchos, but we dried out in the sun pretty quickly.

After a fun – but exhausting – day in PortAventura, we had a quick shopping trip in Salou (and got some mini chocolate croissants, which seemed to be the star food of the trip) before heading back to the hotel for one last night. We just hung about the hotel for the night and our teachers gave us a small gift which was so sweet!

Finally, the time had come to go home. We had an early 7am wake up as we rushed out of the hotel to the airport. The Barcelona Airport was being renovated so there were literally no shops and our flight ended up being delayed by 2 hours, which is not ideal. However, we were all too exhausted to shop anyway so we were content just sitting and resting for a while before flying.

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Overall Barcelona is yet another magical city that I would move to in a heartbeat if I could, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to go; I had an amazing time!

I put together a video montage/travel diary of short clips I filmed throughout the trip. It’s my first one and I only had iMovie to edit it so that’s why there’s nothing fancy; but if you have any free video editing apps please let me know in the comments!

Have you ever been to Barcelona and if so what did you think? Where is your favourite city you’ve travelled to?

CoffeeeAndCream x