For Easter this year, Ryan and I booked a trip to Barcelona! It feels like I have been everywhere lately from London, Nashville, and Minneapolis, but I am not the type to sit at home either so Barcelona here we come!
I came to Barcelona a few years ago after I graduated college with my cousin Becky, but this is Ryan’s first time to Spain and it didn’t disappoint!
We arrived Friday afternoon and wandered around the city a bit before getting pintxos on Blai street. *beer appears larger in picture than real life 😂 We also had the best patatas bravas at this place! (Restaurant La Tasqueta de Blai)
Saturday was so action-packed I am still in disbelief how we did so many things in a single day! We started the day out at park guell walking around and seeing guadi’s architecture. For those that haven’t been to Barcelona, Gaudi is a very famous architect that designed all of the famous sites of the city (stay tuned for more pictures of his work below). I absolutely love the mosaic and love the influence of seeing it around the city.
Our next stop was wandering around the Garcia neighborhood that was recommended by my coworker from Barcelona. We are told this neighborhood is the De Pijp of Barcelona and since De Pijp is the Lincoln Park of Amsterdam we were excited to enjoy chilling in the trendy part of town. We wanted around, had lunch, and of course had to check out the local gelato place! Some of our favorite plazas were Plaça de la Virreina and Plaça del Sol we got gelato at AMMA gelato and tapas at Marcelino 1968.
Our next tourist site was Sagrada Familia which is of course the most famous site in Barcelona. This cathedral started construction in the 1880s and still has a ways to go! Construction was stopped during COVID so curious if it will be completed when Google says so 🤷🏽♀️ it is absolutely stunning and probably the most impressive of all cathedrals in Europe. The stained glass windows are just so impressive along with how massive the place really is!
We somehow still had motivation to keep wandering around the city! Next, we grabbed tapas by the arc de triomph at La Foga. We wandered by the arc which was packed and saw the water feature at Cuitadella Park. S/o to the girl I asked to take our picture since she did such a great job. I also loved watching the cute baby ducks here swim around.
We walked through the El Born neighborhood on the way back to our hotel. There was even a small craft fair where I bought new earrings. We again ate on Blai street. Where we ate had the traditional pintxos set-up where you can go grab whatever you want and then they charge you based on the number of toothpicks you have at the end. So good- tapas might be my favorite food haha
We capped off our 30,000 step day with the magic fountain show! They have this water show set to music. We thought it was every night at first but halfway through our tapas dinner we realized it was only Thursday- Sunday so we quickly headed over and caught most of it!
This is only our first day in Barcelona so I am excited for what we are up to next!
❤️Melanie
Smiles from Miles Away 