Barcelona Bound: Your Essential Guide to Making the Most of Your First Visit

There's not much I knew about Barcelona before booking this trip. Jamon Iberico, a cathedral that was taking YEARS to build, and tapas are the three things I would've told you to check out prior to coming to this city. As I did more research I learned that Barcelona has so much more to offer. We spent 3 1/2 days here exploring and I think it was the perfect amount of time to enjoy majority of the touristy things in the city. Here are my top recommendations and some tips to help make your visit as enjoyable as possible.

Everything from restaurants to touristy sites...look into making reservations. Since it's just Spencer and I, and we don't always mind a little bit of a wait this wasn't crucial to our dinner plans but a lot of the restaurants we went to asked if we had made a reservation or not. The only night it was a problem was when we met up with my brother and his family...trying to find a place for 7 people in a tapas bar is quite difficult. One host told me he would need to be the "Master of Tetris" to fit us in, and another told us the next availability was 10:30pm!! However we were successful in finding a place with a cool cellar dining option, so all was not lost.

Sagrada Familia

It's also important to book your tours of certain places ahead of time. That cathedral I mentioned at the beginning is Sagrada Familia and it definitely needs reservations. Construction started in March 1882 under the guidance of architect Antonio Gaudi. His influence can be seen all over the city and is a combination of Gothic and Art Nouveau styles. It is estimated to be completed in 2026 and is currently the largest unfinished catholic cathedral in the world. Gaudi was hit by a tram car in 1926 and passed away leaving his life work unfinished. Construction has continued with a goal of completion in 2026 , 100 years after the death of Gaudi. Much like everything else in life, there is nothing quite like seeing the Sagrada Familia in person. The amount of detail and character in every aspect of the façade is like any other cathedral I have EVER witnessed. I tried to take some photos, but honestly, you just have to see it for yourself. Unfortunately, we did not get tickets to go inside the cathedral so I guess that will be on the itinerary for next time.

Transportation. Getting around Barcelona is easy. There are a few options to get you from the airport into the city center. We decided to not deal with the metro and took the A2 Aerobus. You can buy tickets right outside the bus stop. Follow the signs and it will guide you straight there. Tickets cost 6.75 Euros each and the bus departs about every 5-10 minutes. We enjoyed seeing parts of the bity as we took the 20 minute bus ride into the city.

Our first night we stayed at the Renaissance Barcelona which is only a few blocks from Las Ramblas. It was nice to spend the first night right in the heart of it all.

We found our way to the metro station and purchased a 72 hour metro pass which we would continue to use all over the city. As I mentioned, we happened to overlap trips with my brother and his family and they were staying at Hotel Olivia just across the plaza. My brother mentioned finding a taxi or Uber isn't a reliable resource especially when trying to get 5 people around the city. There are a couple apps you can download to reserve car services. We tried to use Cabify but it would not accept our American phone number. We did use Freenow on our last day to take a taxi to the airport.

Antoni Gaudi. Important architect with several buildings throughout the city You can take tours of most of them but we wanted to save our pennies for other things. One place we did check out was Park Guell. This was built by Gaudi as a place for the rich to escape city life, he even built a house for himself here. It was a HOT and sunny day and Barcelona is hilly. This is another place you need to make a reservation ahead of time to visit. We didn't get tickets until we landed in Barcelona and had a few options. We took the city bus to the main entrance and headed into the park with about 20 others. We booked our tickets through GetYourGuide. We've used them a couple other times with great success and this was another win. We could've paid more for the "Skip The Line" addition but this was not one of the places I would say it would have made any sense as we basically walked right in.

One of the most famous marketplaces in Barcelona is Mercado de la Boqueria located in Las Ramblas. While the first market was opened as a meat market in 1217 the official La Boqueria was opened in 1826 with construction beginning in 1840. The roof that was installed in 1912 is the same roof seen today. Over 1000 years old!!! The market is nothing short of stunning and overwhelming all at the same time. Imagine food stalls as far as the eye can see. Everything from fresh produce to meats and cheese to fish. You want to go hungry because you'll have all kinds of options for food…but don't go too hungry and get overwhelmed by all the choices. We recommend taking a lap first before making any purchases. As expected, prices are higher at the front because that's where most tourists stop but you can often find the exact same thing for a cheaper price further into the stalls by wandering around. My nieces told me I HAD to get some dried cantaloupe and getting a cone of jamon and manchego were top of my list!

After our first 24 hours in the heart of it all, we moved hotels to the Hilton Diagonal Mar along the water. It was nice to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city center and have a relaxing view of the water. The biggest issue was making sure we got back to the hotel before the metro stopped running at midnight each night. Barcelona is known as a city that never sleeps...so feeling like Cinderella and getting back to our hotel before midnight was often a challenge.

Barceloneta Beach is the popular beach in Barcelona. We are spoiled and have been to some nice beaches in the United States and personally it left a fair amount to be desired. It wasn't very scenic and SUPER busy. Also, be aware that clothing if often optional on certain parts of the beach and there were some very old and very tan bodies just standing around.

Final Thoughts: Would I go back to Barcelona? Sure thing, but it's probably not the top of my list. I feel like we hit the main points and have seen what we wanted to see. Maybe its because I didn't have many expectations for Barcelona from the beginning. Barcelona is a popular place to visit. There were several times where it just seemed to be over crowded and maybe the reality of it all wasn't quite like you've seen in the pictures. Would I recommend Barcelona as a place to visit? Absolutely. The architecture. The food . The people. It was a beautiful city and the food was DELICIOUS.