Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report Barcelona with Teens

For our first trip back to Europe since moving back to the US, we visited Barcelona and Costa Brava. I’ll cover the Barcelona part in this report.

Blog w/ photos: https://freytravel.wordpress.com/201...ona-july-2015/

Who: Family of four, DD16 & DS13

When: July 12th-18th (5 nights):

Why: Good question. First and foremost was to visit someplace on that side of the Atlantic so we could vacation with our British friends (the following week). We wanted to pick somewhere we haven’t been and Barcelona had been on our list. We aren’t big architecture buffs but we thought it would be interesting (and it was).

Lodging: BCNGotic #34 in El Born via www.likelivingthere.com

http://en.bcngotic.com/establiments.aspx?p=21

Just under 200€/nt for a 4BR/2BA apartment (we didn’t use the 4th bedroom but the 2nd bath came in handy). Really liked the location and the apartment was clean and functional. Nothing fancy, but that suits us fine. The booking, arrival (luggage drop + early check in), stay and checkout all went well. I’d stay there again.

Itinerary:
Full but not packed. Not my first rodeo so we know how to pace ourselves. Sure, we left some sites on the table but we know our limits.

Day 1: jet lag walk around El Born, Citadel Park, Arc de Triomf and La Rambla from Placa Catalunya to the Columbus monument

Day 2: Old City walking tour with Runnerbean, MUHBA City Museum (Roman Ruins)
http://www.runnerbeantours.com/
http://museuhistoria.bcn.cat/en

Day 3: Montjuic Castle, Olympic Stadium, Catalunya Art Museum (MNAC)
http://www.museunacional.cat/en

Day 4: Gaudi Walking Tour w/ Runnerbean, Sagrada Famalia

Day 5: Parc Guell, Casa Mila, Casa Batllo

Note: after seeing both, we preferred Casa Mila to the over-crowded Casa Batllo.

Tip: It worked really well to take Bus 92 to the side entrance of Parc Guell. We took the L4 to Alfons X and crossed the street to wait for the bus. Afterwards, we walked down hill to the Metro to get back to Casa Mila. Very easy.