Weekendtrip to Barcelona

I thought Barcelona was overrated. I only been there once back in 2014 then I was trying out the running path among other things. What I mostly remembered from that trip was how crowded it was. Everywhere. Seven years later I was back during a weekend in October. Less crowded, less hot but way better than expected. Traveling during peak seasons has never been my thing but sometimes you have to.

Following recommendations

Before going to BCN me and my adventure friend asked around for advice what to see and do. We got a lot of great recommendations and we tried to follow as many as possible and still do spontaneous things. One thing no one recommended was the park Parc de la Citutadella but impossible to not find yourself due to its central location. Among the things we got recommendations for and also checked out was to eat tapas at Cerveseria Catalana which I strongly can advice for great tapas, visit Monteserrat for hiking, eat burgers at nice place Arco de Triumph. Unfortunately I don’t recall the name of it but it was in a local neighborhood with hipster style near a big square. Do you like to follow others recommendations while traveling or do you prefer discovering on your own?

Beachlife in October

Both of us love to go to the beach. October might not sound like the perfect time for heading to the beach but we were lucky. Swedish summer weather, warm and clear water and we spent many hours of our trip at the central beaches. We were not the only ones there but you can’t say it was crowded. The water was over 20 degrees and although October all beach restaurants were open.

Street art

Barcelona is known for its street art and skater style and I am a huge fan of street art and love to check out paintings in different cities I travel to. We didn’t went to any particular street art neighbourhood and still got a fair share of it while walking around. One of my favorite travelblogs Culture trip have listed the best places to go for a cultural piece of art and HERE you can find there recommendations where to head in Barcelona to see the artwork.

Best brunch in Barcelona

Going out for brunch is always on top of my list while traveling somewhere. I like instafriendly places with fresh food and to my surprise there were loads of them. Not like Stockholm where there is a great brunch spot in every corner of the city but there were many to choose between. The first day we went to Little Fern Café. It was a lovely place with great staff, atmosphere, food and very nice interior.

Another day we headed to a place serving the sweetest pancakes I ever tried. It seemed to be a mediocre place from outside but while the food got served. Wow! The pancakes were even topped with a chocolate bowl that you got a hammer to splash. Check out Gabby’s if you wanna try.

Watching FC Barcelona

Who could resist going to Camp Nou while in Barcelona? if you are a true fan you can take a tour of the stadium but we were glad to just watch a game. Barcelona played against Valencia and was a good game. FCB won with 3-1 and they also got a penalty shoot. The stadium wasn’t full but still great fun and now I can tick off that box from my bucketlist.

Scenic streets of Barcelona

One thing I already liked in Barcelona at my first visit was the big boulevards. Now we got to run 21K at them which was fantastic. But also walked a lot. One day we counted in 50 000 steps. I really like the South European atmosphere where there is a tradition to get along in at a neighborhood bar which you find in each and every corner. Even though there were tons of them, walking into one for a drink and resting the soar feet’s were nearly impossible after 9 pm. Going to Sagrada familia during nighttime I could recommend. Its closed but very nicely lighted up.

The downsides of this weekend trip was that there were loads to do so we couldn’t fit everything in. Guess I will have to come back, but will stay out of the high season. Also renting scooters wasn’t possible but many people had their private ones to cruise the streets with. We tried to rent bikes to cut down transportation time but it was way to complicated and not designed for tourists. Same as seven years ago when we also tried that. Well, the subway is efficient and taxis aren’t overpriced. If you want to read more about visiting Barcelona you can check out Ladies Abroad that happened to be there the same weekend as me.

/ Pernilla that had a great weekend in Barcelona