Here’s a little blog post about my trip to Barcelona in September. My brother was off to uni and wanted a little holiday before he headed off to a life with his head in the books. So in true student style we booked a very last minute hiatus to Barcelona – we booked four days before flying! We had a limited budget and although we indulged in looking at holiday packages we couldn’t afford to beautiful destinations such a Dubai and Miami, we decided to be sensible and realistic and stay in Europe. So bleary eyed and eager to get something booked, at 2am we settled with Barcelona! In hindsight we should have been a bit more particular as we flew with a budget airline and had to pay extra for luggage and our hotel didn’t offer breakfast but overall we were happy with what we had booked – a week of sun, sea and sangria! We basically fell in love with the art deco hotel – Vincci Bit, which I’d definitely recommend as it’s literally a 10 minute walk from the beach and there is a shopping centre (Diagonal Mar) 5 minutes away, which has a great selection of shops such as Zara, Primark and a supermarket!
When we booked this holiday I didn’t feel prepared but thought I’d just go with the flow and take it for what it was – a blessing to get away and indulge in some sunshine and culture. I didn’t take my SLR camera as I wanted to feel relaxed so just trusted in my iPhone to capture all the special moments. So I apologise in advanced if the picture quality isn’t blog worthy! Sometimes you just have to experience the moment without physically capturing it – old skool style.
We flew from London Gatwick via easyJet (we were easyJet virgins!) and it was a pleasant experience but we definitely had to pay for extra luggage, hand luggage for 7 days between three people just wasn’t happening! Roughly two and a half hours later we touched down in Barcelona to the glorious evening sunshine. We decided to be proper tourists and get the train from the airport to our hotel. What should have been a 45 minute journey, turned out to be a 4 hour sweaty workout of lugging suitcases up and down subway stairs! I wouldn’t actually change doing that as, we saw so much on the way! We bought a multi person train ticket for 10 euros, yet nearly got fined a 100 euros by a station guard as he accused us of not paying the full fare but we stood our ground and protested that we did and he let us go – so tourists be careful of getting scammed!
All we really did on this vacation was literally relax, we read books – I took along The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, My Good Friend the Rattlesnake by Don Jose Ruiz , Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom and The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz, chilled on the beach and ate food! Although we really struggled to eat good healthy food on this holiday. Next time I visit Barcelona I think I will get an apartment with a kitchenette so I can cook my own food as there’s an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables available. Wok To Walk in Las Ramblas, Wok Street in Diagonal Mar shopping centre and Browns pizza restaurant on Praia de Gracia were our favourite restaurants.
Check out all the fresh fruit and veg in the market at Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria!
Carrying on with the food theme if you’re looking for amazing churros whilst in Barcelona, check out this place which we discovered on TripAdvisor.
Okay okay one last food place! A little fish and chips shop (you can take the girl out of England…lol) that my brother found on good old TripAdvisor. We got seated within 20 minutes of waiting but according to the reviews on TripAdvisor people wait in line 2 hours for a table! When the food came out we thought seriously is this all we get but, surprisingly it was really filling!
Apologises for the image heavy blog post and I sincerely apologise for the images not being the right way up. The picture gallery on my blog keeps rotating the images when I upload them for some reason. I hope you still managed to enjoy this post!