In this episode we’re taking a two day trip to Barcelona to explore Guell architecture, Spanish cathedrals, shop at local markets, drink sangria at the coolest rooftop spots and enjoy the Spanish tapas this country is best known for.

Make sure to listen to our Madrid & Toledo episode that goes along with this trip. And if you want to take this same itinerary see our Spain Travel Guide to download the exact route and itinerary to enjoy too.

Two Days in Barcelona – Episode Transcript

2 (35s):
Hello fellow Travelers! Welcome to this week’s episode of the Travel Squad Podcast. Today we’re taking you with us to Barcelona Spain. So we actually just visited Barcelona in April of 2023 and it did not disappoint. I’m pretty sure we ate and drank our weight in tapas, sangria and wine on this trip.

0 (1m 2s):
Yes, Barcelona and Spain in general was really, really fun. So we did the big cities Barcelona and Madrid took a day trip when we were Madrid to Toledo and we’re actually gonna be talking about that in a separate episode. So this one we’re gonna focus here on Barcelona, but I was so excited about Spain. I was telling this to Brittany as we were coming up to this trip. I was like, I really haven’t been excited for a trip and this much in a long, long time. Yes, Uganda and the gorilla truck that was there, but like I was like amped up for Spain and I haven’t felt that way in a while on a vacation. I was really excited and like Brittanie said, did not disappoint. Loved Spain, loved Barcelona.

0 (1m 42s):
Super excited to dive into it with you guys.

1 (1m 44s):
There’s definitely a lot of hype around Spain and I feel like it’s one of the more common European countries that people go to. So I think that’s why you guys had so much hype, like you haven’t been there and that’s pretty unbelievable considering how much you’ve traveled. But you are hyping it up now too and I’m really excited to talk to you too because I haven’t really talked to you since you’ve been on this trip. You guys were gone for a week. Usually we talk every week at least on the phone or Zoom or something. And I’ve been missing you all.

0 (2m 14s):
Oh we missed your presence on this one. Kim. It was very saddening, but I am super amped up our next Squad trip coming up. But next time we go to Spain, ’cause Spain is not a one and done type country, we gotta go back and there’s so much more along the Mediterranean coast that we didn’t do. We just hit really the big cities. So,

1 (2m 31s):
Well Brittany, I have to call you out on this one though because I did text you when you all got back and I asked you how was Spain and you came in a little underwhelmed so you’re gonna have to answer to that.

2 (2m 44s):
Yeah, so I, you asked like how was it and I think we were all expecting to be super hyped up about it. I said yes, it was a great time. There was a lot to love about Spain. There’s a lot to do in Spain in general and we only hit two of the cities. I am by nature a nature person and we hit city area. So I don’t know if that played into my answer at all. I think I had a really great time. We got to see a lot, we got to do a lot. But when I think of how does it compare to my top three trips that I’d ever taken in my life, I wouldn’t put it up there. It’s probably in my top 10 somewhere, but it doesn’t hit so high on the list that I’m like everyone has to go.

2 (3m 25s):
And I feel like we’ve done a lot of really amazing awesome trips. So it’s like how do you compare apples to oranges when you have so many good trips in your lineup already?

1 (3m 36s):
Okay then quickly, if someone is only gonna listen up until this point, what are the two things that they would expect from Barcelona that they would absolutely love? Like what are you going there for?

2 (3m 47s):
Well I’m gonna say like the food and then the architecture. That’s what you’re going there for.

1 (3m 51s):
Okay. So if you’re like a foodie who wants to just sit on the tables and have drinks and have food and just walk around and admire the city, it’s great for that.

2 (4m 1s):
Absolutely. 100% would not deny that at all. Alright,

1 (4m 4s):
Well let’s get into it. I know you have some tips for us so let’s get it. Well,

2 (4m 9s):
Before we get into tips, I just wanted to say, you know obviously most people know where Spain is, but Barcelona in particular, it’s in the northeastern region of Spain and so it’s only 90 miles south of the French border and it’s the second largest city of Spain, only second to Madrid. And so it is along the coast and so it does have some of those more temperate weathers. You get the beach vibe, especially there in the summer as well. And it has a seaport so people often come to visit the beaches. It’s really famous for like it’s seafood, fish markets, things like that as well,

0 (4m 41s):
Right along the Mediterranean. So on the coast as a matter of fact, you know a couple times when we were a little high up Kim ’cause we had a rooftop bar, you know, so we missed you on that one. We were even able to see, you know, the sea port and see a ship in at port. So right along the Mediterranean.

2 (4m 57s):
But you did mention we’re gonna dive into the tip so we’re gonna dive right in. Our first tip is to get a metro card. Jamal was in charge of doing all of the transportation research for this trip and so he said we need to get a tourist metro card while we were in Barcelona and so we got one for a 48 hour pass. Otherwise the metro is two 40 euro per ride. So if you’re going to be going all over the city, which is what we did, we walked like 10 miles per day on average. Even with using the metro, this is your best bet in getting your the best bang for your buck.

1 (5m 31s):
And how much is the metro card?

0 (5m 34s):
So that’s a really good question Kim, the metro card itself is a little over 15 euros per person for the 48 hour pass. You can imagine as you go up to 72 hours and beyond adding on days, of course it gets more expensive. Now you don’t necessarily need to get the metro car ahead of time, but if you do and buy it online they give you a little bit of a discount ’cause you could go to any ticket kiosk terminal that they have in the metros within the city of Barcelona and buy them there. But you’re gonna be paying full cost. You can get a discount if you get them online and I would recommend going to Ola Barcelona even though it’s not an official city website, it’s basically an official third party vendor for the city of Barcelona that has all the information of like transportation, what you can do.

0 (6m 27s):
And they even have other cards on there like called the T casual, things like that that give you other things like maybe you can utilize like 10 visits on the metro whenever for a certain cost or you know, unlimited visits for a month if you’re gonna be there a long time for a traveler. So see what you can find on Ola Barcelona, all those same things that you’re gonna see on that website are gonna be available to you upon arrival but not at the discounted cost if you buy ahead of time

2 (6m 55s):
And if you’re at the metro station for a one day price per day is gonna be more expensive for the least amount of days you’re doing. So like one day when we were at the station it said like it was like 10 euro but for two days it was like 15 in change. So there is some savings there for if you’re doing it in consecutive days. So we did the 48 hour pass. While we’re talking about the metro, I would also say make sure you’re staying near a metro line. It makes it so much easier to transfer anywhere else in the city so that you’re not walking super far distances. And Jamal had some metro apps downloaded to put in where we currently were and where we wanted to go to see what your best line of action is in terms of transferring and getting to the station you need to get to to get to your destination.

2 (7m 39s):
Did you all end up staying near a station? Yes, we actually are gonna get into that. We stayed literally on top of a station. Oh how convenient

0 (7m 49s):
It was very, very convenient. And real quick before we move on to the next tip, I would recommend those apps to use to help you within your transportation in Barcelona. Ola Barcelona has an app, so that was a really good one. And also T M B Tom Mary Bradley, right? T m b is the acronym for all the metro bus lines, et cetera within the city of Barcelona. So they have an official city one, so I would go back and forth sometimes between them both are really good. Download them both, have ’em kind of go from there and plan your journey. Next

2 (8m 23s):
Tip for you is to always download the offline maps. If you’re wanting to walk around a city and get around, especially if you have limited data or you don’t have an international pass, make sure you’re downloading the offline maps so you can route yourself between your stops. I think that’s really important. Another tip as well know a few Spanish phrases but in Barcelona it’s actually kind of confusing because not all signs are in Spanish, some are in the whole language. Catalan, how different is that from Spanish?

0 (8m 53s):
You know Kim, when I’m seeing the names of those metro stops, I’m just like, what language is this? You know, didn’t even recognize it but a lot. But a lot of similarities, like for example a lot of the places will be Plaza Day, right? You know Plaza of course Spanish, but the way it’s spelled is P L A C A and then the C has some sort of weird little squiggly under it, not on top of it, right? But that’s a Catalonian way of like plaza and how it’s spelled A lot of the longer words I was like whoa, this is like, I wouldn’t even say close to Spanish but of course I don’t know Catalonian and Spanish well enough to kind of put two and two together.

0 (9m 34s):
But it looked completely odd to me.

2 (9m 35s):
You know I felt like some of the street signs looked almost French in a way.

0 (9m 41s):
Well you are not too far from France and there’s that kind of like cross border that’s about Europe. Everyone’s like multilingual because you’re so close to to one another in different languages. So I would agree with Brittany on that sentiment too. But rest assured, regardless of signs or not know those key phrases in Spanish. And I was really excited to practice my Spanish while we were there. But I guess this isn’t really a tip, but good to know is that once they hear you speaking, if it’s not your native language, they’re just gonna switch to English on you. I tried to practice, I wanted to practice but they hear it and they not bother. So language is not a barrier, let’s put it that way.

2 (10m 19s):
You know, we were like a few places and Jamal ended up asking like them in Spanish, do you speak English? And they would respond back only a little bit and then they would come back with like almost perfect English and I’m like, you’re not speaking just a little bit like you’re doing way better in English than we would’ve in Spanish.

0 (10m 36s):
Yeah. And I would only ask them if they knew English if like my question was beyond my Spanish literacy so to speak and was a little bit more nuanced of a question. But yeah, so everyone knew it. So no need to worry about the language barrier. But if you know few phrases always go a long way, you’re in another people’s country, you should at least respect the language.

1 (10m 58s):
And when you were hearing Spanish, you know how in Spain they say they pronounce gra like with th were you hearing that a lot?

2 (11m 7s):
Yes, absolutely.

0 (11m 9s):
The th comes in very hard. I didn’t hear it at first but ironically as the trip progressed on I felt like I heard it a lot, lot more towards the end. So that that is definitely there. That’s like

1 (11m 20s):
One of those little things about travel that I always get a kick out of when you’re, when I was in Boston and they say Ka, we’re in Italy and they say cross the bridge. Yes it’s cute, I love

2 (11m 30s):
It. Another tip to note is you’re probably gonna need some sort of data wifi, something like that. So make sure you inquire with your cell phone company regarding pricing for international data. Make sure you’re not on roaming. We have T-Mobile love T-Mobile. T-Mobile gives us like five gigs for free internationally before it throttles us. So we were able to make it the entire trip with just that. But there’s not like a ton of free wifi in places really. I mean they had it at the Starbucks and stuff, but you can’t like widely find wifi to connect to, especially when you’re out and about in the city. So if you’re trying to look up things on the the fly, like maybe you have it planned every restaurant you wanna eat at and you’re trying to see what’s in the area and you’re gonna want that.

2 (12m 13s):
And so it’s more cumbersome to look for a place than it’s to just actually have your, your data available.

0 (12m 19s):
Another really good tip is, you know, it’s one of those things you never really know sometimes when you go to a country like is it gonna be a cash culture? Is card widely accepted? Of course you know Spain is Western Europe. I knew there was gonna be card, right? That wasn’t necessarily a concern to me. But of course Brittany mentioned earlier at the markets, I was so excited about the markets a lot of times here in the US you know like even like farmers’ markets, things like that, vendors don’t have, you know, credit cards had no issue with that. We had a hundred euro left over from a previous time that Brittany and I were in Europe and we didn’t pull out cash when we first arrived, which we normally do from the A T m and guess what card everywhere.

0 (13m 2s):
And I’m still came back with 75 euros of that hundred euro. So rest assured you can definitely get by. So if you’re gonna pull anything out, just have minimal or like pocket change in tips. And of course this is Europe public restrooms if you can find them for the most part cost money. So have a couple euros coins for that. While

2 (13m 21s):
We’re on the topic of restrooms, I really didn’t see a lot of public restrooms around Spain in general. And you know when we interviewed Lindsay a while back on our podcast, she had kind of mentioned that too, there’s really not a lot of public restrooms. The typical thing is you go into like a bar or a coffee shop and you just go to the bathroom like that is kind of the norm. So we really didn’t see a lot of public restrooms when we’re we were out and about. So I just made sure that anytime we’re at like a restaurant or a bar or something like that or a tourist attraction to make sure to use the restrooms that they have there. And the restrooms a lot of the time didn’t have toilet paper and so make sure you’re bringing your own teepee.

0 (14m 2s):
Yeah this was like China flashbacks, Kim a little bit, all

2 (14m 6s):
That. I remember Lindsay saying that when we interviewed her. Yeah she did mention that. So there’s not like a ton of to toilet paper, like if they run out, like they’re not worried about restocking it like you would in the US so make sure you have some with you. And also they don’t believe in the, the toilet covers either, so but you’re not squatting. So like Cherina but not like China ’cause you’re not squatting. And then probably my last tip, well no, I have two last tips. Make sure to bring comfortable walking shoes. I did not bring comfortable walking shoes. I brought cute sandals, I brought booties. I didn’t bring comfortable walking shoes ’cause I pulled a Kim. I was like fashion over function and just got done.

2 (14m 50s):
Tell him that you

1 (14m 51s):
Overpacked for this trip.

2 (14m 52s):
Yeah, not my shoes though. No I overpacked in like dresses and pants and tops and stuff. Anyways, I regretted not having a comfortable pair of shoes. I ended up getting blisters. We walk like 10 miles per day. So make sure that if you’re not bringing comfortable shoes, you’re at least bringing blister bandages or band-aids to help with your blisters. And my last tip is if you are planning to do a lot of the tourist attractions in Barcelona, make sure you’re making reservations in advance. A lot of places sell out beforehand or when you get there the line’s gonna be pretty long to buy your tickets. So make sure that you’re booking reservations in advance before you go and that’ll save you a lot of time and money and a headache as well.

1 (15m 35s):
All good tips. All right, now let’s get into the thick of it.

0 (15m 38s):
So we left midweek on a Wednesday and we’re fortunate here in San Diego. There’s now two international routes that airlines have to Europe. The original OG one for us is the San Diego London and that’s the route that we took. And then from London to Barcelona. So we had a 7:00 PM departure time here, you know, in San Diego and really, really excited. Okay, I just wanna throw this out here real quick. I think we’ve mentioned a couple times that we have not flown out of terminal two in San Diego since they have brought the lounge access that we can access on priority pass and we were finally able to use it here on this time.

0 (16m 18s):
So that really kind of kickstarted good way in that sense of thing. So wanted to say that. Was it

1 (16m 24s):
A good one?

0 (16m 25s):
Decent enough one, this was one of the first lounges that we went in. Were of course drinks and food are still included but limited drinks are included and by that limited alcohol ones if you want certain other ones they’ll charge you for like oh for mixed drinks or charge you if you want like high shelf versus just like well you know, ’cause a lot of other places, you know they’ll have multiple options but nothing is like the well you just gotta choose your different styles, right? Old brands I should say. But it was definitely very good. But by the time we left 7:00 PM on a Wednesday time change. Flight time, of course we’re landing next day Thursday, 8:10 PM in Barcelona.

2 (17m 7s):
Whoa you went over the lounge in San Diego but you didn’t mention that we double dipped and we went to the restaurant before we went to the lounge, also included on our priority pass and we were able to three entrees for 27 cents plus a tip at the restaurant. We got a Caesar salad, I got tacos and you got a

0 (17m 27s):
Burger. I got a burger. I’ve been craving a burger for a while so I got a burger.

1 (17m 31s):
How early did you get to the airport to hit both of these places?

0 (17m 35s):
Not incredibly early at all because we weren’t checking luggage simply carry on. And we got there what maybe about two and a half hours? Yeah, only because

2 (17m 45s):
We had to check in because we were going international. Even though we weren’t checking a bag, they still made us go to the counter so that they could check our passports

0 (17m 55s):
And we didn’t know how long the line was gonna be. I mean it’s a international flight big boy airplane, right? You know, if it’s in 300 plus people and only one flight a day. So we didn’t want it to be just like super crowded in there. Wanted to allow time. So two and a half. Yeah, I forgot about that. We did utilize yeah priority pass restaurant as well to get food at the restaurant. Ate that, then went to the lounge. Very correct.

1 (18m 18s):
I love the airport experience now it is a trip of its own going into the restaurant and the lounge and fucking ’em hard before you even get on the plane to your trip.

2 (18m 28s):
You know, a squatty had reached out to us recently, new squatty and thank you for any new listeners out there and they asked us what does fucking hard mean? And I was like, it’s like when you have a really, really good deal and you’re just like yeah you’re fucking them hard. Like how else would you like this buffet? Yeah, breakfast buffet getting the most out of your lounge access, getting

1 (18m 53s):
Upgraded

2 (18m 54s):
For free. Yes. That is what fuck ’em hard means.

0 (18m 58s):
That’s a very good way to put it ladies. I mean I, I love that saying it’s an OG Squad saying and it still lives on today. And so yeah we landed Thursday 8:10 PM and this is kind of where that Ola Barcelona card comes really well into play now from the airport to city center, you know you could take the metro from the airport or you can actually take one of the trains and the aboveground trains that are within the city itself a part of their transportation system. And I’m not talking like the high speed rail to get you out, you know like regular aboveground city trains, they’re called Rhode. So the Ola Barcelona card is really good because it uses it for those trains is it uses it for the metro, it uses it for the bus so you can get around the city, no problem with that.

0 (19m 46s):
But that card also includes your trip from the airport on the train to city center. And we happened to be staying at a hotel called Barcelona sa, which happens to be the name of the main train station. So we took that train from the airport to there, went above ground and there’s that hotel that we were talking about.

2 (20m 8s):
So I knew that I booked it as close to the train station as possible. And so I put in the maps because nowhere on the site did it say it’s literally above the train station. It was like it’s a four minute walk. I’m like oh okay. And it looked like it was right around the corner. So we exit the train station and we’re gonna go around the corner and I was like, no, this like doesn’t feel right. So we went back into the train station and walked the other way and we saw there was a sign for a hotel. So we followed that. You literally exit the train station, you go right next door, you go like on this upward ramp, you take an elevator and then it puts you on the first floor of the hotel. So it is literally sitting above the train and metro station.

0 (20m 46s):
And I would honestly recommend this is a legit spot to stay of course do your research, you’re gonna maybe wanna stay gothic quarter certain districts, et cetera. But if you are gonna be coming in, you want an easy way to get from the airport to city center, you’re gonna be leaving Barcelona as we were to take you know, additional trips to Madrid or any other city, the main train station’s there. You don’t have to worry about hauling luggage, taking that luggage on the metro itself or in a cab. And then when you’re there, you’re already out on metro line itself to take, to get around the city of Barcelona. This was an awesome spot to stay. So I would say any hotel that is around Barcelona San train station, that’s the place to stay if you’re not particular about being in a specific district or area of Barcelona for your hotel.

0 (21m 35s):
One

2 (21m 35s):
Thing we learned when we got to our hotel was that it was space themed. I had no idea I booked a theme hotel but there was like a space suit in the lobby. There was a little like robot wall painting said like boarding area for the gate. They had like these galaxy paintings on the wall and when you stepped into the elevator. So it was definitely space and it was, it was pretty funny ’cause like I wasn’t expecting it at all and the rooms aren’t super space themed so by the pictures you can’t really tell. But we enjoyed it nonetheless.

0 (22m 8s):
Yeah, lobby, elevator, all that stuff definitely had that space theme. So it made it kind of fun and quaint. But you know we got in by the time we landed and everything like that took the train, you know we thought to ourselves, man we’re gonna go to bed early. We were tired on the the final lake from London to Barcelona. Yet once we got to the hotel, Brittany and I just had like our second wind and we were like, we’re in Spain, like let’s find a good spot, like close ’cause we don’t wanna go too far but close to our hotel and let’s get some top tapas. You know, we gotta start off with some tapas and we found with our second wind, a bombass tapas spot right next to our hotel.

0 (22m 48s):
Loved it, loved it. And that was actually our final meal when we came back to Barcelona before we flew out, we ate at that place. We got

2 (22m 55s):
An entire picture of sangria, an entire picture, first six euros.

0 (23m 1s):
Ooh, nice. And speaking of those prices, that’s one thing that I also wanna mention too. We didn’t talk about it in the tips but it’s also something really good to know. Spain is also really popular just beyond of how great it is in its beauty and history et cetera. But it’s one of the very few countries that are on the Euro, let alone in western Europe that is actually still very inexpensive in comparison to other places, right? Granted the UK’s not on the the Euro, but if you go to, you know, London, Scotland, France, Germany, those countries really, really expensive. And then you come down to Spain, lots of things, particularly food, very inexpensive.

0 (23m 45s):
Now of course, course in touristy areas within the city you’ll find things to be a little bit more inflated. But more inflated is like two to three euros more than you could find if you go around the corner to a more local spot. So if you’re getting like tapas, which if you don’t know what tapas are, they’re basically like little appetizers and things that you get with your drinks and it’s very popular Spanish culture over there. They range anywhere normally from like three to eight euros for like all these little appetizers that you could bring to your table and they pretty much become your own meals that way. So really moderately priced and alcohol, very inexpensive. I mean six euros for a jug of sangria.

0 (24m 24s):
I mean how can you go wrong

1 (24m 26s):
That late at night too? Like usually you think of sangria as an afternoon drink, not a late night drink.

2 (24m 31s):
You could have it anytime that you want in Spain breakfast. Why not?

0 (24m 36s):
Why not? You can’t. And then even like glasses of wine we saw as cheap as like two Euro 80 and then up to like four euros, which again compared to anywhere else, very inexpensive in

1 (24m 49s):
That sense. Question for you on breakfast. Did you find that places don’t open up early? We

2 (24m 55s):
Actually did not see that really affect us. So everywhere we wanted to go was open early enough but we went to markets and stuff for breakfast. We really didn’t go to restaurants for breakfast except for we did in Madrid. But if you’re looking at places that are like lunch and dinner, you will see them open later than typical. But in terms of breakfast spots I think we did just fine. Like I feel like that was one thing I was kind of worried about being hungry on this trip and like the the lunch and we really didn’t get affected by that. So I think it, it’s probably more in smaller areas of Spain but like in the big metropolitan cities we weren’t really affected by any of that.

1 (25m 39s):
Okay, very good to know.

0 (25m 40s):
And real quick before we move on and really get into the meat and potatoes of Spain and Barcelona, I just want to say that tapas restaurant that we went to was La Maresa. So in Barcelona San area train station La Maresa, if you’re staying worth a trip, the best bravas that we had in all of our time in Spain and Bravas is a popular potato tapas dish. You won’t be disappointed with the the bravas there. Super ball.

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2 (29m 31s):
So that was our first day in, well just really our night and then the next morning it was Friday we were gonna hit the ground running. We were having a full day in Barcelona, we were super excited. So we started off by going downstairs. We took the metro to a plaza and it was called Plaza de Catalonia and it’s a large square in central Barcelona and it’s like considered to be the city center and the old city. But right when we got outta the metro station and we got to the square, it was like under construction so we were like oh this is kind of underwhelming as like our first impression. But then you start to look around and you see all of the beautiful architecture and it’s just like so picturesque.

2 (30m 13s):
And Jamal had mentioned this too as like people can tell you’re American ’cause you’re taking pictures of like the buildings and you know like the alleyways and stuff but like people that live there that is their everyday life. It’s like that for them all the time so they’re not like looking and doing those same things that we are. So it was really nice to just like take a look in and so we decided to then walk to the market. It’s a very famous market, it’s called LA Market and it’s located off this really famous street called Lala. And what I really like about this street is it is huge, it’s big enough for two-way traffic but in the middle of the two-way traffic is a median that’s as large as the road itself.

2 (30m 54s):
And that median, everyone just walks down, it’s filled with trees and benches and vendors and food and souvenir shops and the restaurants that are on the side use it for seating for the restaurants. And so you’re walking down kind of just like this really big plaza and then on either side the cars are going down as well and Barcelona is such a big walking city that you need all of that space for everyone to be able to walk freely down these streets as well. The sidewalks we have in the US not gonna cut it with the amount of people that are walking down there. So we walk down the street, we went to the market, the market is like the equivalent to Pike Place market in Seattle.

2 (31m 36s):
You can get food, fruit, vegetables, desserts, everything that you wanna eat there you can eat there or take it home and cook it. Like even local chefs there pick up their produce and their meat from this market. So it’s a very prominent market in the town. And what did we pick up? Jamal?

0 (31m 52s):
Oh gosh, what did we pick up? We picked up ’cause we went here in the morning so we needed breakfast, right? Brittany was worried about breakfast, we happened to get it here at the the market but we got ourselves fresh squeezed juice. The plethora of choices that you have on the different flavors, you know, I mean half the debate is choosing what you want, like 10 different flavors of good little mixes but very inexpensive, like two and a half heroes you know for some juice we got some fresh fruit, we picked up lots of empanadas, we got ourself like a spinach and cheese stuffed one, a chicken one. And I mean I was in a debate on my God am I going to eat even more? Because some of the vendors here aren’t just selling, you know, stuff that they’ve made or produce or fresh fish or like a butcher shop.

0 (32m 37s):
Some of those little places where you could sit sit in there are legitimate like little restaurants like within it and you can actually order. We didn’t end up doing that but that’s kind of what we got for breakfast. But even being there it’s just exciting because yeah it’s kind of like a touristy thing now. ’cause of course us as tour we went, we wanted to check it out but this is a spot where locals go again this is like kind of like their everyday life. And that’s one of the things I really love about other countries in general is like the local market. You know we have supermarkets and not to say that they don’t have stores there but like the market, you know I love it.

2 (33m 10s):
So everything that we picked up from the market, we picked up two empanadas, a fruit cup and a fruit smoothie. By the way, the dragon fruit with the strawberry smoothie was so delicious. Like 10 out of 10 would highly recommend all of that that we picked up was about 13 year old.

1 (33m 26s):
Oh wow, what a steal. I, I get a feeling that if you’re a foodie you’re gonna love Spain.

2 (33m 31s):
Absolutely You will love Spain if you love food, love to eat, walk around the city, kind of get lost in it. It’s definitely up your alley.

0 (33m 38s):
And isn’t the market open seven days a week, 8:00 AM to 8:30 PM

2 (33m 43s):
Yeah it’s open pretty much all day every day. So you can go for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can go for all three if you want to. So

0 (33m 49s):
After the market we ended up going to Casa Bot Leo. Now if you don’t know this about Barcelona, it’s very famous and they hype up one of their famous architects, Anton Gaudy. And not to be confused with the gaudy crime family or anything like that, but no he is a a famous Spanish architect and just Google his work. But like a lot of the places that we talk about here that we did in Barcelona ironically just happened to be, you know, his works and things that he’s designed and this is one of the famous homes that he designed for one of these affluent Spanish families back in the day. And his architectures just so unique, weird, vivid.

0 (34m 33s):
And this home is actually designated the UNESCO World Heritage site. Like that’s how unique this place is. How

1 (34m 40s):
Funny, I had written down a question as we’ve been talking to ask you at the end. Are there any UNESCO heritage sites in Spain? So you’ve already answered my question.

2 (34m 50s):
Yeah, there’s a ton.

0 (34m 51s):
A ton of them. Yeah so we ended up having tickets to go in at 10 30 in the morning for this tour. And again, they’ll go back to the tips, that’s what Brittany said, buy these things ahead of time because of course they have ahead of time purchases like we did. So they could either be sold out that day and if they’re not, you are waiting in a big line to buy your ticket then in a big line to even get in when there’s space. So if you wanna go put ’em in advance. So

2 (35m 16s):
The tour was pretty crowded where you’re waiting in line, they call you and they’re pretty specific for when they let you in. So you can’t go in early at all. Like even if you’re like five minutes early, they make you wait till like the minute your ticket is valid for you to go in. What I didn’t like about this experience is you’re juggling your audio guide which has a tablet. So you have headphones on, you have this tablet, you’re trying to take pictures, it’s crowded. So I didn’t really like that experience. We bought the gold tour which booted the tablet and it was using it to like, you could move around a room and it would show you different parts of the room and like point them out, which was interesting but also cumbersome at the same time ’cause you’re just trying to juggle so much and everyone’s like going through the same spots and so everyone wants the same picture spot.

2 (36m 5s):
You know everyone’s kind of like shuffling through at the same time and I feel like they made it too crowded for it to be less enjoyable than I wanted it to be. But it did smell really good inside. It smelled like roses When we entered, and I actually found this out later, well while we were there was that they were celebrating St. George’s Day, which I didn’t know about until we got to Barcelona but it’s a huge holiday there where men by women roses and it’s not a romantic thing necessarily, you can buy it for your partner but you can also buy roses for your mom or your friend in an exchange. Women gift a Men a book. Oh yeah. So it’s like this big day. And so we saw so many rose vendors, I saw so many bookstores and like even in the in Laro Lo while we were walking the street we saw book fenders as well.

2 (36m 54s):
’cause it’s like such a highly celebrated holiday in Spain and specifically in Barcelona.

0 (36m 60s):
But do yourself a favor and if you can Google Antonio Gotti and you’ll just see a collection of his works, you could even Google Casa Bolio and kind of see. But he was a highly very religious man so a lot of his work he tried to incorporate like things of like nature to pay homage to God and things like that. But beyond that, so this home actually kind of has a, I don’t want to use the word nautical theme because it’s not like sailor but definitely a lot of like ocean influence. Yeah that kind of like makes sense And it was really interesting. But beyond even that his style of what he designs is just so weird.

0 (37m 42s):
Like no straight lines, all sorts of like curves, jutted little, you know, shards of things. You know like it’s really hard to explain from not being like an architect and knowing the official terms. Lots

2 (37m 53s):
Of mosaics, lots of art. It was a very, very beautiful home. And had we got to like do a private tour of it, I would’ve enjoyed that so much more. The home itself, it was like it’s a mansion, it was a home built for a couple that lived there. It was

0 (38m 7s):
Like eight stories tall though

2 (38m 8s):
Like yeah And it, I had so many stories. It had this beautiful outdoor patio that overlooked the city. There were so many beautiful elements to it and I really enjoyed it. I would’ve just enjoyed it more if it wasn’t so crowded.

0 (38m 22s):
Yeah, it’s so popular now that I would say the biggest drawback to these things. So if you want to do it, definitely do it. I’m not trying to discourage anybody from it but it, it could be taken back and the experience not as great because they kind of herd you like cattle through there ’cause there’s so many people.

2 (38m 37s):
But from there we went by Plaza Nova, it’s where the old city was born which is called Barcino. And in this square you have like the concert hall. This square is like a UNESCO World heritage site. It’s right next to the cathedral to Barcelona, which is a famous church in the area. We went outside the cathedral just to take pictures and kind of just like scope out the area ’cause we had a tour there later. And so we took pictures from the outside and then right around the corner from that there was a beautiful mural and it was called The World Begins With Every Kiss And it’s actually a mural that’s designed with photo mosaics that were sent in by local residents.

2 (39m 19s):
And the local residents were asked to send in a picture representing a moment of freedom. And so they took all of these photos and I think there’s 800 different tiles. Each one of them is a mini picture but it basically ends up being two people kissing. And so it’s just a really iconic spot to take a picture. It’s a really beautiful mural. So we went and walked there and admired the work. Did you take a picture in front of it? Kissing? Absolutely Kim. How could we not?

0 (39m 49s):
We definitely did do that. And again that you know the place Nova, the Cathedral de Barcelona, the world begins with every kiss mural. They’re all right there together. So you can hit off all those things at that point in time. And then from there we walked to way palace and this is actually another gaudy home. We didn’t have a tour for this one. It’s funny you can see the line to get in, but it’s not as big and popular as Bot Leo and another one, Mila, which we’re gonna talk about later that Brittany and I also did. But this one was another gaudy home that you can add on to. But we just wanted to see what it looked like from the outside since we were closed. And from there we were actually going to lunch at a very famous tapas bar and restaurant bar Conte.

0 (40m 35s):
Ironically enough, our old roommate Rachel and her boyfriend Brett fiance. Fiance now, yes, excuse me. Forgot all about that. They happened to be in Spain at the same time as us and crossing paths in Barcelona. So we met up a couple times to get food with them and some drinks and we ended up meeting up with them now at bar CTE together to have tap

2 (40m 57s):
Us. Yes. So when we walked into bar cte, they actually tried to get there the night before and they were, they kind of laughed at them like you’re not kidding. And like reservations, I booked out 30 days in advance. So the hostess told them like your best bet is coming right when they open at like 1:00 PM or 5:00 PM. So we were in line right at 1:00 PM and we were able to get seated right away right after they took the people with the reservation. So we sat at the bar and right when you walk in there’s a big sign that hangs down from the ceiling that says fuck your diet. And so I’m like alright. And then on the back of the menu too, same motto, fuck your diet. We’re like, all right, let’s do it. So we sat down, we got tons of food, we got croquettes like ham croquettes, we got this really good eggplant that was sliced thin and then they put like a honey drizzle on it and they crisped it up and it also had like a citrus that was really, really good.

2 (41m 52s):
We got a shrimp torta, we got a piece of tuna with wua on it. It is a prier experience but the quality was really good and we had a really good time at this bar.

0 (42m 3s):
Was it a shrimp torrah or was it a calamari? Torta Brittanie. It was shrimp. Oh yes, yes. Yeah that one. Yes. But was we got the sandwich of the calamari and you forgot to mention that one on there. Oh yeah, that was absolutely like bucket flyer in terms of like the food. So I know we were talking earlier, very inexpensive country for food. This one was a little bit more expensive, pricey one. But they take tops and they really elevate, it used like the best of ingredients et cetera. So we really did enjoy our experience here. And kind of to your question you had earlier Kim was asking if we experienced anything of you know, late openings or like the siesta and not affecting things. You heard what Brittany said earlier. They said the best time to come is like one o’clock when they open or five.

0 (42m 45s):
So nobody’s necessarily eating in terms of like popularity kind of close to those hours. And it’s a little bit more slow because that’s the slowdown time for when people cut really ramp up to eat, which really happens to be around like 9:00 PM and later.

2 (42m 59s):
So after we had lunch with them, we took off, we would took the metro again, we went to the arc de triumph and beautiful arch. It was built as the main access gate to the Barcelona world fair in like 1888. And it also is the entrance to another major park and the park’s called Ella Park. And so it’s just a really big park with a nice green space. It’s like the New York City Central Park or San Diego’s Balboa Park, the Barcelona zoos within the park as well. They have lots of fountains and green areas and like lots of sitting areas. Great place for a picnic. Just kind of like relax. We saw lots of people on blankets having picnics and things like that.

2 (43m 42s):
So beautiful park that you can walk through. And so we just wanted to check out that area. Then we went back to the Barcelona Cathedral for our self-guided tour.

0 (43m 51s):
Yeah, so we had purchased online entrances because if you wanna get into the cathedral to see it, you actually need a ticket. But very interesting to coincide. I really love that about Europe when you can go into cathedrals and churches and just really kind of see that old kind of like history, right? Like you, you can go to maybe more prominent Catholic cathedrals or churches and the east coast of the United States, but they’re not as grand as like where they are in Europe at the source so to speak of, of really Catholicism that way. And so they’re just a lot more grand and beautiful and we really did, you know, enjoy seeing that the Cathedral day Barcelona is, you know, one of the visual icons of the city itself too.

2 (44m 32s):
We ended up learning after we came back that this cathedral was dedicated to a woman named Yu. She was only 13 actually, but she was a young virgin woman and the story says that she was put up on like a stake in the city, exposed naked NEP public square and then a mid-spring snowfall came in and covered her nudity and the Romans that had put her up on the stake were so enraged they stuffed her into a barrel with knives and they rolled it down the street and that’s what killed her. And so her body is actually in tuned within the crypt and we were actually able to see her crypt while we were in the church. And then when you leave the entrance of the cathedral, you go into like a courtyard area and we saw these like really big beautiful fat white geese we’re like why are these like white geese here?

2 (45m 24s):
Well there’s actually 13 of them. They’re 13 there because she was 13 when she was murdered. So that’s a story behind that, which we didn’t know necessarily going in. Interesting story. Beautiful church. They had really beautiful stained glass windows. It is very interesting to walk around. Had a very beautiful area where the choir sits and sings and I enjoyed this church a lot.

0 (45m 47s):
Well I’ll tell you what Brittany, if we actually did not do the self-guided tour and we actually did the guided tour, we would’ve gotten this story. I am very sure while we were there. But it was fun and interesting.

1 (45m 57s):
Haven’t we learned our lesson by now with getting a guided tour on some of these experiences in other countries?

2 (46m 4s):
Yes, absolutely. And I actually don’t know that they did have a guided tour Jamal. I think you’re misspeaking on that. We did do a guided tour for another church in Barcelona and I am glad we did it to get the background of all of that as well.

0 (46m 18s):
Yeah, I’m probably mistaken. You know, I remember when we were on the trip, Brittany, you were saying like, oh we have our tour and then you’re like, oh, I’m so glad it’s not as guided. Like it was a relief. ’cause we thought it was a guided tour and we weren’t really kind of like feeling one because we were already tired and didn’t want it to be too long. So that’s why, I guess I thought it was they offered guided tours there.

2 (46m 38s):
No they don’t. It’s self-guided. So you gotta learn all of this stuff about the the cathedral either before you go or when you come back. But yeah, we did see her crypt and it was a beautiful church to visit. And after we left the church, we went across the street to Hotel Cologne, we went to the rooftop bar Kim, you’d be so proud of us. No reservations required. They have a two story rooftop terrace and we got a spot right in front overlooking the cathedral. We had sangria, the most expensive sangria that we bought the entire trip. It was 13 euros per drink. But the views were worth it. And if you are staying at this hotel, they actually have a area called Spa and News, which is like their pool area that also overlooks the cathedral.

2 (47m 25s):
So that’s only for hotel guests though.

1 (47m 27s):
Did you all just have sangria here or did you have a bite too?

2 (47m 31s):
We did not have a bite here because it was not long after we had stuffed ourselves for lunch. So we didn’t get anything to eat. We only got drinks while we were at this rooftop bar. We actually didn’t even eat dinner this night ’cause we were so stuffed.

0 (47m 44s):
No, yeah, so after the rooftop bar experience, and by the way, you know, we only really discovered this because you know, you’ll see a lot of tos or Instagrams of Barcelona. Like I, I don’t know if the algorithm knew we were going, but I was seeing them real hot like as we were coming up, you know, to this trip. But they’ll say that there’s places that you could do like rooftops. This one was one of them. They don’t require reservations. You could show up. There’s another one for the other famous church, if you will, LA Familia, which we’re gonna talk about coming up here later. ’cause we did that the next day, which is another ti architectural masterpiece in that sense of things. And they have a rooftop bar in that area. I forgot to what hotel, but that one you have to book in advance and it’s really, really hard to get.

2 (48m 29s):
Yeah. So we decided to go for the one that you could literally walk up, go up, wait for a table and enjoy your time up there and

1 (48m 36s):
So wrong. You said you discovered this rooftop bar through TikTok TikTok

0 (48m 41s):
Instagram, one of those ones. Yeah. Can’t really recall which one

2 (48m 45s):
It was through Instagram reels.

1 (48m 47s):
Good find. Yeah. And you’re right about the algorithm because I know we’re talking about Bali next year and so I, I’ve saved a couple of posts and every single day I’m getting Bali stuff now. Ooh.

2 (48m 57s):
Can’t wait for that trip too. It’s

1 (48m 59s):
A little too early to start diving into those posts though.

0 (49m 4s):
And so since we basically, you know, rallied hard that first night when we landed, went out and got tapas, hit the ground running in the morning. This day, like Brittanie said, we were kind of really tired. We didn’t have dinner that late lunch was pretty much our dinner went back to the hotel room and that was kind of really it for us, wasn’t it? Yeah,

2 (49m 23s):
We packed a lot in that day. So there was a lot going on and we had a lot of really cool things that happened that day. So we called it a night, went to bed early so that we could start our day dice and fresh on Saturday. So the next morning we started our day off in Barcelona at Gray Park. This is another gaudy creation. And we paid 10 euro for general admission. You could also do a guided tour for 22 euro. You’re gonna spend approximately two hours within the park. We had tickets purchased for 9:30 AM and so this area, it was supposed to be a 60 home community made by Gotti, but the community of Barcelona didn’t support it. They weren’t big Gotti supporters at the time.

2 (50m 5s):
So only two homes were built and they did not sell. So Gotti ended up buying one of the homes, moving into it, moved in with his family there and that’s where he lived for about 20 years until his death. And it is now like the home that he lived in is now the Gotti House Museum within the park. So it is a little bit of a track to get to G Park from Central Barcelona. So we took the metro, but then you have to walk a bit uphill or take another bus line to get there. But it’s such a beautiful park when you get into it. It’s a huge green space. But there’s also so many architectural marbles when you enter, when you enter, there’s this huge staircase with stairs on both sides.

2 (50m 46s):
There’s this lizard or dragon in the middle that’s kind of watching over the entrance to the market hall. And if you Google just like way park, these images are gonna come up if you go up the stairs and then there’s this room full of pillars everywhere. That was supposed to be an area where they imagined to have like a local market for that community. But because it never developed into a full community, it didn’t play out into that. But it’s this beautiful huge room with all of these columns. And then if you go up the stairs from there, there is a big prominent lookout area where you can see the Mediterranean Sea and you can see all of Barcelona and it’s really beautiful.

2 (51m 28s):
And then there’s this bench that wraps around that terrace and the bench is completely mosaic and it’s supposed to be in like the shape of a steak, like a serpentine. So lots of really beautiful areas of this part.

0 (51m 40s):
I loved it. The beautiful green space in a bustling city. Again kind of on the outskirts but another gaudy, you know, masterpiece that they sell of the city. Like you go to Barcelona and it’s gonna be really hard for you to not hear about gaudy. And ironically enough, a lot of the top places to go that aren’t just like regular markets or certain things like that are really gaudy places. And we are saying Gwe Park, that’s how you pronounce it, but it’s spelled G U E L L. So until we really found out that it was G Gu, we were calling it like we park ourselves. So if you’re gonna Google it to see photos, G U E L L Gu Park.

2 (52m 18s):
Yeah. And this day I feel like was our gaudy day. We did everything gaudy this day. So from there we went to Casa Mila. And this was another home that Gotti designed. It was a couple that bought this home and they decided to have gaudy commission it, build their new property. And so the design of this was the main floor of the building was gonna be their home. And then they were gonna build on top of that and redtail all of the apartments above them. And so this home has one of the most iconic terraces in all of Barcelona. It has these beautiful sculptured chimneys and air events on the rooftop. They actually have a night show on the rooftop that you could buy tickets to as well ’cause it’s so popular.

2 (52m 60s):
You gotta be careful while you’re on the rooftop because there’s like all of these stairs. But they’re all different heights and you could like hurt yourself going up and down all of these stairs if you trip. But it was really beautiful. They have these arches, there’s an arch on the rooftop as well and it frames la grata familia church from it. So you can get some really cool shots while you’re up there. It’s very photogenic. It has a lot of different curves with both like decorative and functional purposes. They were even talking about how there’s like a center area of the house. They designed it a certain way to allow like certain airflow if you open up the windows. He really put a lot of thought into the pieces that he created and how it would work with like natural elements for heat and to cool the house as well.

2 (53m 47s):
So it was really interesting to see all of that. And I think the highlight of this house is the rooftop terrace.

0 (53m 53s):
The rooftop and the attic. The attic that was all the art bricks in there too. Yeah, I felt kind of were cooler than the house. So like we were in the debate, are we going to Casa bat Leo, are we gonna go to Casa? We weren’t necessarily gonna do both. And we had a thought process like shit, we’re gonna have some FOMO here. You know, depending on, ’cause the reviews were kind of split on it. So I would say the home at bot Leo was a lot cooler in terms of like the design, it’s weirdness, it’s beauty. But then you go to caa, the home itself was you know, okay right. But the attic that you get to go into and then the rooftop was like whoa, that stuff is actually like really, really cool. And you think to yourself, well how can an attic and a rooftop be cool?

0 (54m 34s):
Let’s Google it and you’re gonna find out. Or when you’re in Barcelona go. I will say this though, kind of now that we’re wrapping up the gaudy homes, the two popular ones that maybe people would go to, I’m glad we did it in hindsight, maybe we could have missed out on it and just kind of seen them from the outside. Because I feel like what we were talking about earlier with bot Leo is that just how clouded they are now and the experience of wanting to push people kind of through it, it deters from it. But of course they’re trying to make money. So again they’re gonna do it to capacity but that kind of kills it I think. So if you wanna do it by all means do. But if you’re like on the fence on it, I could say that these could potentially be misses if you’re not like a big fan of like architecture in that sense of things.

2 (55m 19s):
But from there later we had some downtime in between we got a quick bite to eat and then we went to Sada Familia, which is also another Gotti creation. But it is like the church that you see images of when you picture Barcelona.

0 (55m 32s):
So we ended up going here. This is the one that we actually had a guided tour for which I am really, really glad that we did. Did Brittanie you, you booked the tickets for these, did they have just general entrance and you could walk in yourself? Yeah,

2 (55m 47s):
So there was a lot of different options at all of the places that we went to. Most of them at least. Where you could do like a basic option, which is just like basic entrance. But we decided that this was our highlight. We wanted to do a guided tour that included going up to a tower and included the church entrance and all of that. So, but you could go just straight in and not do any of the add-ons and it was going to be probably a little more than half of Christ.

0 (56m 13s):
And I would advise highly against that. Right? Unless you’ve done your research on Les Grata familiar yourself, you’re gonna wanna do the guided tour because the amount of information and what they tell you about the building really so fricking cool on it. Like if you google images of la Ciara familia, it’s very rare. Of course those might be the highlighted ones that they’re gonna show like on Google images or something like that. But it’s very rare to see La Ciara familia without having construction frames around it. And the reason for that and what I didn’t understand, I was, I always thought like, oh restoration, no, this is an ongoing project. It’s not even finished. It’s not even designed to be finished for another, what, three years, which is supposed to be at the hundredth anniversary of like Gaudi’s death.

0 (56m 58s):
It wasn’t finished, it was designed to be built kind of slowly. They still have his original design plans and and they’re building it piece by piece, bringing it in, stacking it and stacking it and doing this and that. I thought that was pretty cool about it. But La Grata familia, if you’re not familiar with Spanish for the translation, it means the sacred family. So this is literally a cathedral church really about Joseph Virgin Mary and Jesus and really talking about his life like one side is you know, the birth of Christ, one side is you know, the death of Christ, the other side is the eternal life of Christ after death. And then the fourth side, I forgot what it was, but they had an original architect first and I think they’ve just kind of let that one be and not really do anything with that.

0 (57m 45s):
But like you then look at what’s built up on the walls and see all the carvings and the imagery and it’s just, I was blown away when she was telling us all about this. Like on the outside when you see it,

2 (57m 56s):
Yeah, it is the largest unfinished Catholic church in the entire world. It was Gotti’s last project. He actually died while he was working on this project. Not due to the the church itself. He was actually hit by a train and then

0 (58m 9s):
Not a train. It was a car wasn’t it? It was like

2 (58m 11s):
A trolley or something like that. Okay,

0 (58m 13s):
But not like a train

2 (58m 14s):
Train. No, not like a train train, like a train trolley. He was, he was hit, he went to the hospital, he succumbed to his injuries but because of that and his end of life work was dedicated to this project. He’s actually in the crypt in this church. But the church itself was super beautiful. There’s a lot of beautiful stained glass windows on one side, which is the side where the light comes in in the morning. You’re gonna get this blue green reflection in and then when the, when there’s sunset at night, you’re gonna get a red orange glow from the stained glass on that side. So in the morning or at sunset are really beautiful times to visit. ’cause the way that the sun enters the building is going to just cascade these beautiful colors within the church.

2 (58m 57s):
Really beautiful. The one thing I will say is we did add on going up to the towers, there’s two towers you can go up, one’s on the nativity side, one’s on the passion facade side. And I thought that the towers were gonna be cooler. Like you basically take an elevator up and then there’s a lookout point and then you go down the spiral staircase. But that’s literally all you do. And we paid extra money to do that and I think I could have lived without that piece. It’s not like you’re on a cool balcony and you’re taking like these photos where you can see the structure of the church. You’re just looking out and I feel like we also saw good views at other places. So I could have lived without that portion. Yeah

0 (59m 36s):
Would, it’s an experience to be in the towers and go down this narrow spiraly staircase. So I thought that was kind of cool. But I 100% agree with Brittany’s sentiment. And I just want to clarify something we were saying like church cathedral for la grata familia, it’s actually a basilica. There is a difference. I’m not gonna go into what that difference is, but I just kind of want to give that clarification. It’s more particularly a basilica than a church or a cathedral. But going back to what I mentioned earlier about obviously God he’s love for God and how he was a man of like strong faith and how a lot of his designs were nature oriented to represent God’s beauty inside of grata familia.

0 (1h 0m 18s):
Completely juxtaposition of how it looks like on the outside. It kind of has that, you know like gothic look like it’s fierce and hard and everything. And then you get to the inside and it’s really soft. But he has these big giant pillars that come in through there. Then when you look at the ceiling and how it’s designed, it’s almost like they’re trees trunks and then they have like branches out and it’s like canopy. So he almost made it like you’re in this little sacred garden so to speak, while you’re actually like inside with the trees. So the amount of like thought he put into what he was doing, let alone, you know, just kind of like modeling everything after nature. I found really unique about like all his work when we were there. So I think the gaudy homes, they kind of like sell up but like Guell Park, la Grata, familia, other stuff like really worth checking out and seeing and I, I really appreciated it a lot.

0 (1h 1m 7s):
I loved it.

2 (1h 1m 8s):
The churches when it’s fully built is supposed to have 18 towers and they are reflecting like important biblical figures and so they are building currently the one that represents Jesus Christ, which is going to be the tallest tower. And that one’s set to be done in three years in 2026. And they are specifically constructing it for the 100th year after Gotti’s death. He died in 1926. And so that, that piece of the church is supposed to be built and completed in 2026. But the actual church as a whole still will not be completed at that point. So it’s gonna take years and years and years to build. So I would love to go back in the future and see as it progresses.

2 (1h 1m 48s):
And then if you go across the street from the church, there are some other green spaces and parks. There’s one that is facing the nativity side that has this beautiful pond in front of it so you can get some really good pictures if you’re looking for your Instagram shot, it’s from across the pond with the church in the background. When I

1 (1h 2m 8s):
Actually saw your stories from the rooftop bar with that beautiful church in the background, this is where I thought you were.

2 (1h 2m 15s):
Yeah, that was at the Cathedral de Barcelona and then this is LA Grand Familia. Both really beautiful churches and I think they often get mixed up because of that. Like they do look similar in a way. And so that night we did go out to dinner with Brett and Rachel again. We got a quick bite to eat and then the next morning we decided to hit the ground running to our other city in Spain. We started our trip to Madrid the next morning. But we did come back to Barcelona before we left to go back to the States because that’s where our flights were out of. So on the day that we came back to Barcelona, we had a leisure afternoon just kind of walking the city, just took it really mellow.

2 (1h 2m 56s):
We went to this pastry shop and we got these moscar pone stuffed croissants which were absolutely delicious. And we went out to dinner and just had like a very leisure afternoon and that that’s kind of what summed up our trip in Barcelona. And

0 (1h 3m 9s):
I just wanna say something real quick too, I guess it’s kind of really tip and kind of back to the transportation aspect of things. Our flight was at 7:10 AM and like I was saying, you can have the train, you can have the metro, either way it’ll get you to the airport but they don’t start operating until like the five o’clock hour in the morning of course. So if you have an earlier flight, you’re not gonna be able to take those great and cheap options to the airport. You’re gonna be really forced to take a taxi then at that point. And just so you are aware, taxis, you know from city center and the area in which we were at, they range anywhere between 30 to 40 euros wherever your trip starts to get there.

0 (1h 3m 51s):
Versus even if you did buy that Ola Barcelona and using the metro cards or anything, that express train to the airport is about five euros. So substantially more expensive. So if you can for whatever reason get a later flight handle that, to have that great cheaper option to get to the airport.

1 (1h 4m 8s):
Very good tip. Jamal, a question for you on the cabs though, was it easy to catch a taxi? Were they out and about on the streets or how did you get one? We

2 (1h 4m 16s):
Actually asked our hotel at that point, is there going to be taxis as the area? ’cause we were pretty close to the train station and they said no, not at that hour, but they said they could book us an official cab and so they reserved one for us to pick us up at 4:15 AM

0 (1h 4m 32s):
Yeah, so if it’s early in the morning like that, and again we were by like the train station, so if you’re in that area, like I, I’m sure there maybe would’ve been like one or two parked out there, but it’s still one of those things you don’t want to really risk. So we had our hotel reserve it, I would say do the same, have your hotel reserve it, they’re happy to to do it. The official Barcelona city cabs are all metered regulated highly. So very good transportation option if that’s what you have to have. But generalities to your question Kim like out and about during the day, easy to catch a cab, no problem. Okay,

1 (1h 5m 5s):
That’s good to know. Did they have Uber

2 (1h 5m 7s):
There? Not in Barcelona. We did see it in Madrid though.

0 (1h 5m 11s):
So that pretty much wrapped up our time in Barcelona. We loved the city. And again, you know, next week here for you guys, we’re gonna have the continuation on talking about Madrid and Toto, which really excited to get into for you guys.

1 (1h 5m 25s):
Alright, squat as well. Thank you so much for tuning into our Barcelona Spain episode this week. Be sure to follow us on Instagram YouTube and TikTok at Travel Squad Podcast, and send us in your questions of the week.

0 (1h 5m 38s):
If you found the information in this episode to be useful or if you thought we were just playing funny, please be sure to share it with a friend that you know would enjoy it too. And as always, please subscribe, rate and review our podcast and tune in every travel Tuesday for new episodes.

2 (1h 5m 53s):
And stay tuned for next week’s episode. We have Madrid coming at you and you’re gonna hear all about our amazing adventures and tips in store for you.