It took seven and a half months, but I’ve finally finished the review of our trip to Barcelona and Sitges, Spain in June, 2008. I started it as a review to make remembering our trip easier. As I was writing it up, I decided to make it more of a travel guide to hopefully convince you to go to Barcelona. It was an amazing trip.
There’s a lot of information in here. The guide is broken up into 10 chapters linked below with the highlights of the day for easy reference:
Day 1: Boston to Barcelona: Plaça de Catalunya
Day 2: More Walking: Santa Maria del Mar, Picasso Museum, Ciutadella, Euskal Etxea
Day 3: Gaudi and Eating: Casa MilÃ
Day 4: More Gaudi: Parc Guell, Sagrada FamÃlia
Day 5: Sitges and Birthdays: Barcelona Cathedral, Parrots Hotel, The Beach House
Day 6: Sitges and Beach
Day 7: Sitges and Montserrat: Montserrat
Day 8: Sitges
Day 9: Too Hot to Shop: Aparthotel Calabria, La Boqueria, Tapaç 24
Day 10: Montjuic: Montjuic
Barcelona is very beautiful. Parts are dirty and smelly, but those parts are serviced 24/7 by sanitation workers. I was struck by how most of the buildings look like they were from the 50s or 60s and wondered what makes the replacement cycle so much faster in cities like Boston. The city is eminently walkable, and the transportation system adds to the ease in getting around. If you like looking out over cities from heights, you’re in luck. There are at least 6 different tourist destinations that offer great views of the city.
Bottom line?
Where to stay: Hotel Regencia Colon – Perfectly situated and affordably priced.
Must visit landmaks: Santa Maria del Mar, La Boqueria, Sagrada Familia, Casa Milà , Montserrat, Sitges
Must eat: Tapaç 24, Euskal Etxea, Chocolateria Valor
Must shop: Kukuxumusu, Xocoa
For my mom, here’s a slideshow of our trip and a collection of videos from different points.
Also, please play around with this map I made of all the places we went to or should have gone to. I spent days before we went researching restaurants, hotels, landmarks and popping them onto this map to make it easy to figure out what to do in each neighborhood once we got there. The price of this travel guide is worth it just for this free map.
In closing, I hope you’ll go Barcelona because it’s awesome and you going will validate our decision to go. If you do go, I hope you find this Travel Guide helpful because would validate the time I put into it. Because after all, what’s a blog based Travel Guide if not an adventure in navel gazing?
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Spain Travel Guide This guide is also very helpful when you are about to start your travel to Spain. Yet, your blog has quite a personal touch to it. A more detailed bits of information. thank you for sharing!
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a great guide for any one who wants to visit Barcelona, it is a great source of additional information
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Wow!! Your guide was wonderful. I’ve printed off so much. Thank you for taking the time for the rest of us to come.
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As one who dislikes guide books, this was by far the most informative set of info that I’ve come across. It helped me gain reference to where I am going to stay (Hotel Murmuri) and find our the restaurants close by for our first few days! Really helped me “hit teh ground running”. I wish guide books would do the same …with the map, that is. The map MADE this blog. Thankyou ever so much.
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this is a great guide, but further to your where to stay, i would always recommend an apartment eg. http://www.shortstayapartment.com where you can really live the local life with a personal terrace… we stayed at the liceu apartments which was right by the ramblas!
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Excellent resource! I would also recommend these to further your research when planning a trip.
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That should have read, I recommend these free travel guides
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Great guide, I especially liked the days dedicated to Gaudi and eating!
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I recommend barcelona-tourist-guide.com, there are some very interesting information, regarding housing I strongly advice Private Homes http://www.private-homes.com/barcelona/en/home , which rents Cheap apartment in central Barcelona.
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Nice Guide!
Good summary and all the places not to be missed
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nice guide, planning to go this summer, it provides me great info, amongst many site i found http://www.world-rt.com/ written by a local guy give better info and tips
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i hope to do the travel soon
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Some top advice here. Barcelona is an amazing city and we’ve been quite a few times now. You have come up with some nice ideas and we’vbe been to most of them. My wife and I write our own free travel guides on things to see and this is what we recommend in Barcelona…
Barcelona City Guide
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[…] gives us the lowdown on Barcelona in this free Barcelona guide published on Unlikely Words. The guide is structured around each of Aaron’s ten days in the […]
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