Joy2

Hi -
We are planning a 10 day trip to Portugal and 5 nights in Barcelona. Which section of Barcelona is recommended for first time traveler's.

KarenWoo

We stayed in the Eixample neighborhood. The architecture is beautiful, and the location is very convenient. We walked to La Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo, Casa Mila, Las Ramblas, and Barceloneta Beach, and other places as well. It's a safe neighborhood.

Joy2

Thank you, I’ll research this area now.

Maribel

A second to Karen's Eixample suggestion.

The Eixample is the 19th century grid-like expansion of the city with tree lined, wide boulevards. Its middle section, the Quadrat d'Or, around the major boulevard, Passeig de Gracia, is filled with beautiful, grand Moderniste (Catalan art nouveau) architecture.
It´s an elegant, upscale area yet within walking distance of many of the city's other major monuments.
The Eixample has metro & bus lines and is within walking distance of the final stop for the Aerobús on the Plaça de Catalunya for trips to the airport.
It also houses some of the city’s best restaurants and cafés.

I personally prefer to stay in the Eixample because there I don´t feel the need to take lots of extra precautions regarding my belongings while walking around (very long story).

Since the Eixample spans a wide area of 6 different neighborhoods, first time visitors might try to aim in the middle section, the Dreta de l’Eixample shown on this map.
https://es.maps-barcelona.com/mapas-...barcelona-mapa

From the middle of the Eixample you can easily walk to the Old City. Some prefer to be in the area closer to the Sagrada Familia, the Eixample's northeast corner.
You have a wide arrange of accommodations in this district.

joannyc

I agree with both Karen and Maribel. That’s where I stayed also.

Maribel

Correction: La Sagrada Familia is in the northwest corner of the Eixample. Duh, as you can see on the map!

Maribel

Correction to the correction: I must have dyslexia; lately I'm constantly confusing east with west, left with right! La Sagrada Familia, duh, is in the northeast corner of the Eixample, as anyone can see on the map (except, for me, of course)!!! So disregard the ill thought post #6, lol.

EnricM

READING THE CITY MAP IN BARCELONA

Worth mentioning a funny thing about maps and Barcelona... we locals don't read the map of the city in the same fashion you do... and that affects "communication", of course.

Let me explain:

With the introduction of Google Maps in 2005, and its "normalisation" of the North pole-based representation of the Earth, nowadays most everybody reads maps in this fashion: North pole = top of the map. In Barcelona however, for centuries, maps of the city had been represented with the Mediterranean sea to the South and the ridge of Collserola -where Tibidabo mountain is located- to the North. This does not correspond to the way Google Maps would display the city, in the latter, Barcelona would appear "skewed".

This wasn't only a "local" feature, but the standard way of drawing the city map by all the famous European cartographers from the past centuries to the modern day (ie. https://st.depositphotos.com/1002052...-barcelona.jpg). In fact, the Barcelona City Hall still uses the traditional map -which, btw, is far easier to plot and navigate in one's head- for its public transport network maps as well as in many other "public" maps: https://www.tmb.cat/documents/20182/...=1636357299000 You can see the "difference" between the traditional map and Google's here: