We started our trip in Spain by arriving in Barcelona. Because we arrived a bit earlier than planned before our first day, I had a bit of time to go see the street parades related to the religious holiday celebrations they had for 3 days.
We didn't see all of Barcelona in 3.5 days, but we saw a fair amount:
Day #1
Joan Miró Foundation
Catalan Art Museum Palace
Montjuïc Castle
Bullring mall (Las Arenas)
CaixaForum
Aquarium
Day #2
Arco de triunfo
Santa Caterina Market
Palace of catalan music
Picasso Museum
half day in Figueres
la boqueria market
Day #3
Park Güell
House museum
La Pedrera/Casa Milà
Casa Batlló
Barcelona Cathedral
Augustus temple
Barcelona History Museum (underground ruins from roman times)
Barceloneta beaches
Cable car from Barceloneta back to Montjuïc
Day #4
Sagrada Familia Guided Tour with Tower Access
Finishing up Barcelona History Museum
Gaudi Museum
Museu Frederic Mares (longer than expected)
And just enough time left for Güell Palace before going to the airport
Here are the pictures:
Day #0
I luckily ran into the end of a parade related to the religious holiday they had:
weird pigeons
Day #1
This was our first real day. We walked on La Rambla to a cable car to the Montjuïc area.
la rambla is mostly a tourist trap now, but it had some fun stuff :)
funicular up to Montjuïc
Once we were up by Montjuïc, we went to check out Joan Miro Museum which was part of our BCN pass (sadly a waste of money as museums were free that day due to the holiday). I'll just say that we were not big fans of Joan Miro:
any artist who thinks they can get away with this, and call it 'valuable art' is not one I'll take seriously
don't love this, but at least there is a bit of work
great art indeed
I should also take balloons, fill them with paint, throw them on a canvas, and get rich and famous
this was ok-ish I guess
the mercury fountain was likely the only cool piece for me
On the way to the art museum, we walked by the former olympic stadium complex:
And we eventually got to the Art Museum:
awesome view from up there:
the bullring turned mall
Sagrada Familia, still being built
Pictures of the Cataluna Art Museum are on their own page.
Once done with the Art Museum, which took a while, it's not small, we walked back to the Montjuïc cable car and took it up there:
good views from up there too
After seeing the castle, we went back down to the fountains, but were not able to approach them since they were getting ready for the festivities and fireworks of that night, so we walked to the bullring museum which had good views too:
while the inside looks like a round-ish regular mall
We then took another cab to go to the Aquarium, have dinner next door and find a reasonable spot to view the fireworks.
You can see the Aquarium Pictures here
Day #2
After a long day #1, came day #2, which started by the Palace of catalan music, a truly beautiful building:
We then went to Picasso Museum:
yeah, he did pottery too, oh boy...
We finished it quickly enough that we had time to stop by a market before catching a train to Figueres (on its own page, mostly to see the Dali Museum:
Day #3
For day #3, we had to head out earlier to visit Park Güell, for which I was only able to get tickets at 08:00 that morning, so we head out earlier and got there early enough that they let us in, despite missing our entrance window. From there, we went to Casa Milà and Casa Batlló.
Gaudi was a one of a kind architect, definitely check out the page I made for his buildings. Got a few nice pictures from the roof:
We then walked to the cathdral:
Nice views from the top of the cathedral too:
no one was able to tell me what this was
Next door was Barcelona History Museum, with a nice tour through the roman streets that were found below ground level in the old town:
I made the call to leave the museum a bit early (we finished it the next day) and grab a cab to Barceloneta to check out the beach, and barely, so barely get a ticket to the cable car that picked up from there back to Montjuic, as they closed the ticket sales 30mn before their published closing time:
people working out on the beach
the ride from the beach starts from a high tower
Day #4
For our last (partial) day, I had to keep the best for last (due to ticket availability), and we did a guided tour of the Sagrada Familia, a one of a kind church from Gaudi.
There are very nice views from the top of the Sagrada Familia's towers of course:
We then went back to downtown to finish up the history museum, do the gaudi museum, and the quite interesting Museu Frederic Mares on its own page.
And we finished the (partial) day with the Gaudi Museum and Guel Palace. From there, we had to head out to the airport to fly out to Granada, our next destination.
