Barcelona Trip Report (the Non-Chronological Variety)

After all I'd heard about las Ramblas being seedy and full of thieves, I was pleasantly surprised. We walked down it at all times of the day and night, and I was never concerned. In the morning, it was full of people going to work and people opening their stores (loved the flower shops). Yes, there were the statue-type street performers, and I'm sure there were pickpockets, but I didn't see anything suspicious.

Metro - Easy to use, clean (relatively), good signage.

Our first afternoon, we used our iPods (used a splitter for one) and listened to a walking tour from tourcaster.com. It was a short one - 38 min. running time, longer for stops. I would do that again; it pointed us to some spots that we wouldn't have seen/visited otherwise. I'm not sure that a longer-running walking tour would have held either DS or DH's attention.

Sagrada Familia - It's everything you've heard, and more! Up close, it's harder to see the "melting facade" effect, but then you can see all the details. The newer facade, I felt, was also impressive. The interior, with the tree-like support columns, was magical. And most of the interior is a construction site, full of scaffolding, construction workers, pieces of the building waiting to be installed. This is what cathedrals must have looked like to many residents in the middle (and later) ages - most cathedrals took people's entire lifetimes to build.

Casa Mila/La Pedrera and Casa Batllo - Also great, though like other visitors, we found Casa Batllo more interesting and impressive. The blue-tile interior atrium was another magical touch. I was glad we visited Casa Mila first.

Seu Cathedral - Nice, not fantastic, but the cloister makes it worth a stop. Also near there (from the tourcaster tour) was a beautiful little courtyard, which I managed to not write down the name of, but which I noticed later was also noted in Rick Steves' Barcelona materials. As were the "hidden" Roman columns near Placa Sant Jaume.

El Born - Fun, here also I found not seedy or edge, but lively until later in the evening than the Barri Gotic area.

Cablecar to Montjuic - The line was very long, so we skipped it (much to the relief of my fear-of-heights self).

Montjuic - DS really enjoyed the funicular, so it made up for missing the cablecar (he's ridden gondolas lots). We also paid for the overpriced cablecar/gondola from there (I hid my eyes), which reportedly offered great views of the city.

Miro Museum - One of those parental pride moments, kind of. DS LOVED this place. Me and DH, after a while, were those adults slumping in the corner, having reached our modern art saturation point, while DS looked at EVERY picture. I would not have predicted this, though I know DS generally enjoys modern art.

Parc Guell - Very fun! Beautiful entrance buildings. We visited the little Gaudi house (combined ticket with Sagrada Familia), which was definitely worth it. Every room had tile flooring in a different pattern, and there was a lot of Guadi's furniture that had originally been in Casa Batllo. Also a nice break from the city noises, to walk through the park.

Picasso Museum - I like it more than I thought I would! A nice-sized museum (though see above for DS looking at EVERY picture). DS and I especially enjoyed the multimedia presentation on Velasquez' Las Meninas, and Picasso's take on it in the room following. For the first time, I felt I could actually recognize something in Picasso's paintings!

Modernisme walking tour in the Eixample from the Gaudi guide - We didn't complete this tour, as DS and DH decided it was boring. But we did see some Modernism buildings and details that we wouldn't have noticed otherwise, and we made a point to see Gaudi's first building.

Catalan Music Hall (Palau de la Música Catalana ) - We all liked it, though we all agreed that the 50-minute tour lasted about 30 minutes too long (about the length of the slide presentation in the beginning). There were no performances, alas, when we were there.

Museum of the History of the City (Museu de l’Història de la Cuitat) - DS loved the Roman ruins, and the audioguide was thorough but not too long (this is where I particularly noticed the money that Barcelona seems to have to preserve history, unlike Italy). Less impressive for anyone who's seen the ruins in Italy, but still worth seeing if you like ancient history.

I'll post more later specifically about the FOOD!

Thanks for posting.

Glad to hear you found out what many of us keep posting...that Las Ramblas is not the "horrid and unsafe" place so many people make it out to be.

BTW...is the gothic cathedral still covered in scaffolding?

Thanks for the report, I love reading about Barcelona since my two trips there. Looking forward to the food report.

Great report so far. Looking forward to the food report yet to come. Thanks

Welcome back, Lexma! I was just looking yesterday to see if you were back and had posted.

As you know, I am particularly awaiting your Dordogne and Paris portion of the report, but having never been to Barcelona, I love reading about it. Between you, missypie and jgg all raving about it as a family destination, I think we must get there soon!

Looking forward to more.

Enjoying your report, as Barcelona is on our list for the future. We have boys 12 and 14 too, so especially interested in what your son enjoyed (and didn't).

Nikki - I forgot to mention you; your trip reports and other notes were also very helpful. Isn't it nice to relive vacations by reading about others' trips there?

One correction (NOW I notice all my typos). The Eixample walking tour is from the Cadogan guide to Barcelona, which I found provided more detail than other guide books. We also took a photocopy of Rick Steves' chapter on Barcelona, from his Spain book, with us.

fun4all4 - I thought of you as we travelled through France! I'll try to post those reports over the weekend.

The Miro Museum, though a hit with my son, was only a "might-do" on the "must-see" list originally. But I would say probably a miss for someone who knows they're not into art. The good thing about it, though, like the Picasso Museum, it's relatively small. Though I love art, I find it much more enjoyable in small doses.

Another thing my son liked, partly because we don't have much public transportation where we live, was the metro. We didn't use it a huge amount, as we mostly walked, but it's convenient, and the lines run to places that we wanted to go to. And though DS doesn't play soccer himself, getting a Barca football (soccer) shirt was a must. And of course, he liked the street performers. There were several good ones in Placa del Pi on Friday evening, one dancing on stilts, that we saw later in the placa in front of Santa Maria del Mare.

Comment on languages. I know some French and Italian, and no Spanish, so had to learn it for this trip. DH, though he took Spanish in high school, was more reluctant to use it than I expected. Usually we could use Spanish, though sometimes I had to ask if someone spoke English, and they always did. I learned a lot of food items in Catalan (or Spanish), so it worked best for us to get a Castillian/Catalan menu AND an English menu. As I recall, every place that we needed an English menu had one.

Our overall summary on Barcelona, we all liked it, and will probably return. Not as the primary focus of a trip, but probably as part of a trip that includes other places, maybe small towns in Catalunya or further up in the Pyrenees. I think we'd still do a trip to the rest of Spain separately.

Food post later, after I complete more of the work that I'm supposed to be doing during the day to fund the vacations...

Lexma90 - Glad you had a great time. We too, did not find any problems with Las Ramblas, and actually enjoyed the activity - my son LOVES the statues!!

Dukey - I forgot to reply to your question. Yes, the scaffolding is still up on the cathedral. Good thing we were forewarned on that by Fodorites.

Someday, if I can summon the energy, I'll post an even-more-complete restaurant report on egullet or chowhound. But in the meantime, I've enjoyed salivating as I reviewed my notes on the following food and meals.

General comments on food: We enjoyed our eating experiences, generally, but wouldn't put the cuisine on par with Italy or France. We ate a lot of very good food, though, and I felt it rated higher than I've heard from other visitors to Spain. (I think that's partly because of where we ate, and partly because it sounds like Catalunian cuisine is a bit different from the rest of Spain's.) I know that tapas is not really a Catalunian thing, but we LOVED it. When we return, we'll eat more tapas. And we're not big meat-eaters, so we took full advantage of all the delicious seafood, and ate a lot of it.

Every night, we ate at 9, and while we were sometimes among the first, we were never the first to arrive, and except for Cinq Sentits, we were either the only English-speaking people I could see/hear, or among the only, which we like.

Caveat: You might have noticed from previous posts of mine that DS is vegetarian. He is, but agreed to NOT be vegetarian on this trip. Sigh of relief from parents. He's also a hugely adventurous eater, as am I. DH is a little less adventurous (no squash or organ meats).

I took a long list of restaurants, color-coded (tapas, restaurant, seafood or chocolate) on a map, with me. DH and DS made fun, but I always had food possibilities for snacks or lunch.

The Boqueria is GREAT! We never ate a meal there, as we weren't ever in the area at lunchtime, breakfasts were otherwise committed (see below), and dinners were already planned. One of the reasons we'll have to return. We did buy a lot of snack stuff there, cheese, fruits, fruit juices, breads. DS loved picking out different flavors of fruit juice. Being cynical, I'm sure they weren't really 100% juice, but they tasted good.

Breakfast at Granja La Pallaresa Xocolateria, at Carrer Petritxol, 11: We ate at this place every day, so DS could get wonderfully delicious chocolate and churros. (It was so rich, I only got it once.) DH had cafe con leche and churros, and I experimented. My favorite, to my surprise, was the "bikini" recommended by our waiter. My description does not do it any justice: two regular slices of fresh white bread, lightly grilled, with fresh manchego cheese and jamon. Delicious! The ensaimadas are deceiving, don't waste your calories, they don't have much taste.

Bar del Pi, Barri Gotic, for tapas: Our first afternoon, we sat in Placa del Pi (about 1/4 block from our hotel) and had our first tapas. I wasn't sure about patatas bravas. I mean, fried potatoes, how interesting can that be. I was wrong about that - they were delicious everywhere we ate them, though the spicy mayonnaise varied from kind-of tasty to very good, and never very spicy. And boquerones, which I discovered are those marinated anchovies (fresh, not the kind you get in cans in the U.S.) that I love in Italy. So I got those wherever we saw them. Good location for people-watching.

Senyor Parellada, close to our hotel, in El Born, for dinner. Chosen as a traditional Catalan restaurant, easy for a jet-lagged night, and we could make reservations in advance. The prices are very good, the place is scenic, food not exciting. On the waiter's rec, I got the baccala (salt cod) a llauna; decent but boring. DS's squid was the best item.

QUQU, in Eixample, for lunch: This was a fun meal; we kept ordering tapas. I won't list everything we got, but the polpo al feria (octopus) and boquerones were especially good. Lovely spot to sit outside on a nice day.

Cinq Sentits, in Eixample, for dinner: This restaurant didn't live up to my expectations (which were perhaps too high). It was very nice, the staff was very professional while being friendly, the decor minimalist. But the meal just didn't knock my socks off, as one of my kid's teacher's says. To qualify that, DH and I have very high dining/food standards, and were holding this restaurant up against the Michelin-starred restaurants that we've eaten at. Against most restaurants in our home city, it would be one of the best. Notable were the well-known maple syrup shot, the monkfish mousse (DS's favorite) and the foie gras terrine on cocoa with a carmelized top (my favorite). The meat and fish courses were also very good. The lemon items dessert was rather one-dimensional.

Merendero de la Mari, in Port Vell, for lunch: This was our paella day, even though, I know, paella is not really a Catalan dish. DS and I got the fideua with fish and seafood, which we enjoyed. Fideua was described as angel-hair pasta; here, at least, it was the size of spaghetti. DH got the paella with Calabrian lobster, which was far too much work, IMO, to get the meat out of the shell. Relaxing view of the harbor.

Passadis del Pep, in El Born, for dinner: Our most fun meal! (And one of the most expensive.) This is the seafood restaurant, sister to Cal Pep, at which you can make reservations and has no menu. DS really wanted to go here, and but for him, we wouldn't have chanced a restaurant with no menu. But the food was delicious, very fresh, and as I mentioned, fun. We received a before-dinner dish of pan tomate (these just didn't do much for me), then seven tapas courses of seafood: mussels, steamed, with onions; sea snails in butter with breadcrumbs (first time for all of us, they were delicious, very similar to "real" snails); fried sardines (with a little added salt, delicious, though not the fav of the guys); baby prawns, butter, very sweet (too much work, IMO, to get the little shells off); arroz negro with baby squid (yum); six large gambas (shrimp), grilled; nine crayfish, with cibella onions. Then we were asked if we wanted fish, lobster or meat. For the three of us, we chose sea bass - very good and lobster. We decided that warm-water lobster is not like Maine or Brittany lobster, and doesn't taste half as good. We won't be ordering that ever again. It was fun to anticipate each next course, and each seemed better than the last. Do not go here, however, unless you know that you like seafood, regardless of what you get (and as it turned out for us, DH and I had previously had everything except the sea snails, and DS had eaten most of the items). There was an American couple sitting near us who sent many of the dishes back untouched; they would have been so much happier at a different restaurant. Also, except for the gambas and the crayfish, the servings that the couple received looked the same in size as what we received, so three people eating meant that we had the right amount to eat.

Cal Pinxto, in Barceloneta, for lunch: Ok, guys, in everything I read, not one person mentioned that this restaurant is RIGHT on the beach. Beautiful location, great views. (Funny how DH noticed immediately that some of the women were topless; I didn't notice until he told me; and preteen DS never noticed.) We went here for more fresh seafood, after our wonderful experience the night before. It was very good, and fresh: sea snails (canailles), prawns, baby squid, grilled sepia.

Sauc, in Eixample, for dinner: Our other high-end, high-concept restaurant. I would rate this higher than Cinq Sentits. This was more Catalan/Spanish in feel, and we were the only English-speaking people in our section of the restaurant. Again, the decor was minimalist, but in warm tones, the staff was pleasant and helpful, and the dishes well-executed. The menu was only in Spanish, but the owner translated what we didn't already know. We were tickled with the black sea salt from Hawaii that was served with the tasty bread. Tuna appetizer was especially good. This was the only place any of us (me) had the famous roast suckling pig. It was very tender and tasty, but I'm just not a big fan of pork. My dessert was a local dish, fidarola (?), and as I'm a fan of anything related to bread pudding, I loved it. The friandise (after-dessert little things; is there a word for it in Spanish?) were also delicious. I would definitely recommend Sauc if you want a special dinner in Barcelona.

Random snack items:

I tried a horchata, a milkshake-like drink made with tigernuts. Unusual flavor, and I didn't think it was very sweet, and it was thinner than a U.S. milkshake. I liked it, DS did not, DH had helado (ice cream).

Everyone once in a while, we'd see a churros place. I forget what they're called, but they sell, basically, churros in a paper cone, and also hot chocolate. Fun to share.

Chocolate stores: I had a whole list of these, but only ever went into one, Xocoa. To be honest, I wasn't impressed. I bought a white chocolate thing with ginger filling, but the ginger flavor wasn't strong at all. I'll have to return to try more.

We did eat other Catalan food, as after Barcelona, we spent the night in Figueres. I'll post that separately, though.

Thank - headed to Barcelona for 5 nights this month and have taken note of many of your tips.

I had been trying to think of something for our B&B host since she has been so helpful on email... once you mentioned the flower shops I knew I was set! (unless she already has fresh flowers out everyday, then I'm still stumped...)

You named two of my favorites -- Passadis Del Pep and Sauc! Sauc has a great prix fixe 3 course at lunch that is an outstanding value if anyone is watching their budget. Reservations a total must.

I'm a bit mortified about the couple who couldn't eat many of the dishes at Passadis Del Pep -- why would anyone hesitant about eating crayfish and sea snails go to a restaurant where there is NO MENU? That must have been a poor and costly experience for them -- what a bummer. They must not have done any research since many of the menu items are consistent and have been described in many food forums.

Our waiter told us that lobster is the costliest "add-on" item but that it's not at all the best -- we also went with the sea bass, which was regrettably, a bit overcooked at our dinner, but we still finished it with satisfaction.

I actually thought Passadis Del Pep was an excellent value -- I was footing the bill for a celebration dinner and I almost did a happy dance when I saw the final bill -- $400 including tip and that included 2-3 bottles of cava and after dinner liqours. A ten course meal with drinks and tip for 4 people in Chicago would have run me around $600 so I was thrilled that I proposed that we have our dinner in BCN.

Great to read your report! Can't wait to go back...

Fishee - I agree with you about the couple at Passadis. It's not the kind of place that you wander into, and even if they had, you would think they would have asked questions when they didn't get any menu. I felt bad for them; we were having so much fun, and devouring everything (the waiters, I think, got a kick out of our son eating so much), and they were just sitting across from us, picking at their food.

The food sounds very good. I'm glad to hear your DS is an adventurous eater. I feel sorry for the families that travel to places with wonderful food and are worried about finding chicken nuggets or pizza for the kids.

Thanks for a great report. Having been in Barcelona twice, it's become one of our favorite cities, we think with the "staying power" of Paris--likely to reward multiple visits. Thanks for sharing your dining experiences. We'll tuck these away for future reference. Any place that serves both goat and razor clams at several restaurants gets my vote.

I'm enjoying all sections of your great report!

Did you have any problems driving out of Barcelona to France? I've heard it's difficult for some reason. What was your experience?

Thanks for your help.

Ha! Driving out of Barcelona to France! The big problem is the $400 or so extra charge for a one-way rental with a pickup in Spain and dropoff in France.

What we did, partly because I realized this problem after we'd decided on other parts of our itinerary and didn't want to change them, was to take the direct 8:45 am train from Barcelona to Perpignan, France. I found information on this in an excellent post here on Fodor's (other trains on that route take quite a bit longer). It arrived at Perpignan at 11:45, we marched directly over to the Europcar rental office (right there in the station), picked up our French car rental, then drove 1 hour back south into Spain to visit Girona and Figueres. The next day, we continued our trip into France, and eventually, dropped the car off in Brive, in the Dordogne.

Kind of a kooky solution, but it worked for us. Anything else I came up with would have meant missing Girona/Figueres, or a long train ride back and forth from Barcelona, which didn't make sense to me, as we had to go that direction anyway to get to France. And the trip from Perpignan back south didn't take very long.

A really, really good report with lots of "meaty" information!

But I think you are naive if you don't think your preteen son noticed the topless sunbathers!

What a great way to get around the Spain/France car rental problem! We're actually flying back out of BCN so it's not a problem. I'm concerned about the route from BCN airport up through Girona to France. Hopefully it won't be a problem, but others have reported it's difficult