Food, beaches and a terrible Airbnb. Welcome to Barcelona!
Our next (and final) destination in Spain was Barcelona. We decided to fly as a train would've taken over 6 hours and the flights were very cheap for a fraction of the journey time!
Barcelona airport was nice! Such a night and day difference to Seville, but I guess Barcelona is a much more popular destination. We took the airport bus (like Melbourne, Barcelona hasn’t figured out an airport train yet) to our accommodation. Considering they run every three minutes, they crammed that bus full. It was shoulder to shoulder and standing room only for most of the trip. Sam had to yell at the bus driver who'd shut the doors before we'd been able to wrestle our way off.
Our accommodation was……awful! We had a lot of trouble finding affordable accommodation in the city (Barcelona is in the midst of a housing crisis) so had booked a private room in an Airbnb. What was lovely in Lisbon was terrible in Barcelona. The first red flag was that the address was different to the one on the app and the hosts kept asking us to message on WhatsApp rather than Airbnb. Next, we found our room didn't even have a lock on the door - we managed to have this resolved eventually after complaining (the listing specifically stated a locked bedroom door). The room itself, while advertised with a window, was actually an internal room with a small window to a sealed internal atrium (so no fresh air and minimal light). This was the most uncomfortable part as it was HOT! Unbearably so! And there was no fan or cooling! The whole apartment had each room individually let as Airbnbs - in total, while we were there, seven people shared one tiny substandard bathroom. The shower was small and had an awful mouldy shower curtain that clung to you while you tried to shower. The cherry on top was that the shower wouldn’t drain and you could only use the water sporadically while enjoying the sensation of standing in ankle deep shower water. On the second day the wifi stopped working and we had no internet for the rest of our time there - not too major for me as we have Europe sim cards but difficult for Sam who needs internet to work. For four nights it had cost us AUD$720 - Airbnb ended up giving us AUD $220 back after we complained. This was our first ever negative experience with an Airbnb and I can honestly say we did our research and read all the reviews beforehand! On closer reading of Barcelona’s Airbnb laws, I think our Airbnb was illegal as Barcelona has banned Airbnbs of that type. It would explain why the address was different and the WhatsApp requests!
At least Barcelona is a foodies paradise so what we saved on our terrible accommodation we more than made up for eating out! Sam had been craving Mexican, so our first night we found a little Mexican cantina - La Guerita Mexicana - for dinner. It was so delicious after the disappointing food in Seville! They even gave us a tequila shot on the house to finish!
We then went for a wander to Montjuïc and the Magic Fountain to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, this was another entry in the “fountains that don’t work in Europe” scrapbook as the Magic fountain, which is supposed to put on an impressive water and light show, was not operating - classic Europe! The views out over the city were impressive - the Basilica de La Sagrada Familia (Barcelona’s famous work in progress cathedral) was most eye catching! It was a lovely space to view the sunset although the vendors trying to sell you beer & wine were irritating. There was a busker on a guitar though who really made the evening.
After an uncomfortable nights sleep we headed out to find brunch and landed on an American style breakfast at La Desayuneria which revitalised us somewhat! We still didn’t have a lock on the bedroom door so were disinclined to go too far away until it was sorted by the Airbnb host. Sam tried to see if we could at least get a refund and get out of there so we could go somewhere else but Airbnb were not particularly responsive or helpful.
Eventually we had to leave as we had pre-purchased timed tickets to go to the Basilica. On the way we walked through the old Gothic Quarter of the city - down the famous La Rambla strip to La Placa de Catalunya where we saw the most pigeons I have ever seen in my life! From there we went to see two Gaudi houses, Casa Batllo and Casa Mila. Gaudi was a Spanish architect, most famous for his intricate structures in Barcelona with the Basilica de La Sagrada Familia being his most well-known.
After a very hot walk we finally reached the Basilica. Impressive, weird, beautiful, jaw-dropping, insane - I can’t quite come up with the right adjectives to describe it. On the outside it’s like a melting intricate masterpiece depicting key parts of the bible. On the inside, it’s like what I imagine walking in the halls of heaven must feel like. The size and grandeur of the building is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. The stained glass windows inside gave the place an ethereal glow. The more time you spent looking around, the more you notice the little details. They’ve been building this Cathedral for over 140 years and hope to finish it sometime in 2026. The tickets set us back €52 so it will not be a visit we'll be repeating any time soon! We finished off our evening with Ethiopian food (random but why not!). Can recommend - it was delicious!
As it had been so hot and awful in the Airbnb, we decided to have a beach day to cool off. I found a very Melbourne-like brunch place called Eixampeling Brunch Cafe for breakfast before we set off to Barceloneta beach. We took the underground to the Arc de Troimf where we stumbled upon a bicycle festival.
Sam convinced me to take a detour through Ciutadella Park to see a fountain (which wasn’t working!).
Barcelona is famous for its beaches but in comparison to Australia/New Zealand, the beaches are rubbish! It was very busy, there were a lot of vendors around trying to sell you beer, wine and everything else you might need at the beach (even massages). The beach was dirty, the water wasn’t very clean - I think we stayed for an hour but mostly to people watch. I’d been watching the vendors going up and down the beach trying to sell mojitos and sangria to the beach-goers. I had a suspicion they had no alcohol in them, and was most intrigued when a group near us decided to take the plunge and give them a try. They paid €20 for three mojitos. The vendor quickly “vanished” (of course) because it was just juice - no surprise at all! For dinner we had ramen and beer - nothing exciting to report (Melbourne does ramen better!).
For our second to last day we had booked in to go to Park Guell, another Gaudi work. It was €10 each to visit which was expensive in hindsight for what the park includes. It’s really just a city park with two Gaudi buildings at the entrance and a few unexciting works throughout. The main gripe I had was that it was confusing! The recommended walking route on the website and official maps just walked us to closed gates we couldn’t get through. The main viewpoint at the top of the park was completely roped off! I’m not sure what we paid for exactly but I definitely was not impressed! The rest of the day was relatively quiet - Sam unfortunately had caught a cold so we decided to have a lazy afternoon. We ventured out later for more Mexican and frozen margaritas. As it was a little bit cooler, we ended up walking through more of the Gothic Quarter towards the waterfront. There wasn’t much else to see so we called it a night and headed back to the Airbnb.
Our last day in Barcelona and we were definitely ready to leave! I’d had enough of the accommodation and the heat and was looking forward to a change of scenery. We said one last goodbye to the Airbnb and headed off to a local supermarket offering bag storage. We had found an app called Bounce where you can book bag storage at various businesses around the city - super convenient and cheap! It was €12 for the two bags for the day including insurance! It was entertaining watching them place our bags in the secret alcove behind the shelves with all the chips. The chips kept our bags very safe!
We had a final brunch in Barcelona before heading off to explore a bit more of the city. We went to the Arenas de Barcelona which was the old bullfighting arena before it was converted to a shopping mall. We were tourist-scammed €3 to take an elevator to the top for panoramic views. Afterwards we found the free escalators - next time we will be more savvy!
We walked back up through MontjuĂŻc to the Olympic park and down to the botanical gardens. We had planned to walk through here but after learning it was paid entry, we decided to head back into the city.
In the Gothic Quarter we found a vegan restaurant and sangria bar where we dined on a vegan seafood platter while indulging in a sangria (or two).
At this stage, I was really well and truly over Barcelona so we decided to collect our bags and head out to the airport for our first Easyjet flight. I’m sure you’ve seen at some point those reality TV shows about airports and airlines and their dramas. Easyjet is usually one of them where the customers are all upset because they arrived late to check in or their flights been cancelled. Knowing this, we decided to check in online and drop our bags early to be safe. On our way to the airport a notification came through that our flights had been delayed. No dramas - we had nowhere to be! We actually had no issues with Easyjet at all apart from the delay (although we watched A LOT of people getting pinged for having more carry-on than they were allowed!). We also refused to pay for seat selection so Easyjet completely trolled us and sat Sam and I across the aisle from each other - although we each got a row to ourselves!
I had quite high expectations for Spain and sadly they were not met. I didn’t enjoy my time here at all. Barcelona was an improvement over Seville but still not what I was expecting. I guess I had thought it would be similar to Mexico (which is amazing - go there!). I found it too hot and the people weren’t that friendly. I didn’t feel like there was a lot to do or see either apart from the Basilica. The food was good but I reckon Melbourne does it better! I wish in hindsight we had spent more time in Portugal but that’s the benefit of hindsight!
Our next stop sees us head back to France for a few days before Italy. I can’t emphasise enough how much I’m looking forward to baguettes and cheese again!