48 hours in Barcelona: Witnessing Catalonia

Let’s rewind to nearly two years back to the Fall of 2023. I was an au pair in Mallorca, which you should definitely check out some of my Mallorca content because Mallorca is an island not many Americans consider when going to Spain. After, about a month there I had my first weekend trip planned to the continent to meet up in Barcelona with my friend Lucia, who was au pairing in Madrid.

I booked a flight with Ryanair from Palma to Barcelona for around 40 or 50 euros. This was my second Ryanair experience and this time I did it the real way with just a backpack. I had to borrow one because the one I brought was a bit small and wouldn’t fit nearly enough for 2 nights in Barcelona. This was also my first hostel experience so my host family also loaned me a lock for the locker in the hostel. Now lets get into this epic weekend getaway!

Day 1

My flight left Palma at 12:45 pm and I arrived in Barcelona at 1:40pm. It was only a 55 minute flight. That is like flying from Minneapolis to Chicago for me. Once I arrived I took the train into the city and found the closest stop to our hostel, St. Christopher’s Inn. This is where I met up with Lucia who had taken the train to Barcelona earlier.

Once we were settled in our hostel we headed to our main stop of the day, La Sagrada Familia. Many people go just to see the outside but we wanted to do a tour, so we bought the tickets to enter ahead of time. We took the metro and got there a little before 5:00pm. We walked around the outside and took our pictures. It was really fun for us to do something like this together. Lucia and I became friends while working in the study abroad office of our college together. She inspired me to pursue being an au pair. We hadn’t seen each other since graduation in May, so we had a lot to catch up on.

We had to be there a bit early in order to go through security to enter the basilica. For the tour we had tickets and an audio guide downloaded on our phones. The audio tour was really good. It was probably one of the best I have done. It was easy to follow and gave you all of the details of every little thing inside. We split up a bit, not following the same path. Eventually I ended up at the fun mirror that gives you the full view of the inside.

As many of you may know, the basilica was designed by Antoni Gaudí. It’s construction started in the 1880s and to this day is still not complete. If you were to visit it though, you wouldn’t even notice as it is nearly completed. In the tour you learn why Gaudí designed each thing exactly the way he did from the stained glass to the sculptures to the pillars in and outside the building. It’s really interesting getting inside the mind of Gaudí. And honestly you could spend forever here. We spent over 2 hours with the audio guide and our own curiosity taking us through each piece of the building. I do recommend doing the tour if you have time. With limited time in Barcelona I think it’s ok to skip the tour and just see the outside, but I would definitely recommend reading about the construction and significance of the basilica.

Our next stop and last stop was for dinner at Restaurant Santa Anna. We found this spot in the Gothic Quarter to get some paella. I got a variation that consisted of short noodles rather than rice, while Lucia got the real deal. Paella was also a staple of Mallorca so I had already had it quite a bit. We took our time at dinner and had sangria as well. Afterwards we got some gelato, because it is so good in Europe. I love that you can just pay a euro or two to get a scoop of gelato. Its also the sweetness you need while not being expensive. Now it was about 8:00pm and we had no other plans for the night. Make that an emphasis on plans.

Once we got back to our hostel we met some of our roommates and decided to head down to the hostel bar. I had quickly showered and put on a skirt. I got to try my first aperol spritz (which I really do love now) in this bar. We hung out for a little bit talking to different people from around the world but we didn’t stay long because we didn’t want to be out too late since we would be having a long day the next day which did include going clubbing.

Day 2

We started our big full day in Barcelona not too eary. It was probably around 10 or 10:30 when we left the hostel and hopped on the metro to get to Park Güell. Before walking up the big hill to the park we stopped at a cafe for some breakfast (aka a pastry and coffee). This is when I really started to see and understand Barcelona’s unique identity as being Catalan. It really shouldn’t have surprised me so much to hear a language that is not Spanish being spoken as I had been living in Mallorca, but Mallorca always felt different to me because I knew it as Mallorca, not Spain. I do know that it is a part of Spain, but it has never been what I typically thought of when thinking about stereotypical Spain. We all know Barcelona as being the epitome of Spain in the US. And what I was seeing and experiencing in Barcelona is not what I had imagine. Every one was speaking Catalan. I felt silly speaking Spanish. I did the same in Mallorca and never felt silly, but I do think some part of that has to do with being a tourist in a city that doesn’t was tourists and doesn’t want to be a part of Spain.

These were the thoughts in my head as I was eating my breakfast. I know, its a lot for the morning. Anyway after we finished up we took the long walk up to the park. It was the first weekend of October, but it was hot! I was dying walking up all the stairs and hill with the sun beating down on me. We took a little break at a church along the way. Santuari de San Josep de la Muntaya was located at the foot of the steps to the entrance to Park Güell. The building was built in a more newer style than most churches I had seen in Spain as it was from the 1800s. The main building of the sanctuary functions as a residence and orphanage, but located to the side in a smaller building is the chapel. I love stopping into churches and praying, so I appreciated that Lucia was my travel buddy because we had that commonality of both being catholic. She entered these churches with the same intentions as me which is a great attribute to have in your travel companion.

Afterwards we braced ourselves for the last set of steps and entered Park Güell. The first thing you come across is the terrace with the very famous view of Barcelona with the two houses in from of the city or at least that was the entrance we took. We took our photos and then walked around the park.

We found out way to the viaducts that make you feel like you are an ant in your underground home. These will take you to the hypostyle room where you will be bumping into other tourists because you are looking up at the ceiling the entire time. You will also get a view of the little houses from here but it isn’t nearly as good as the terrace on the top.

From here we walked down to the houses and walked by the salamanders. They are quite cute. I love the mosaic design of them and the park. It is a pretty recognizable design from Barcelona. There are a lot of souvenirs that have it. I later bought an elephant statue in this design. Once we made it to the bottom of the stairs we entered the houses. We went into the one on the left (from looking down the stairs) and toured what was actually a residence. They are part of the Barcelona history museum which explains why it does feel more like museum than a park.

From there we made our way back around to the top which did involve going up hill which was also when I was starting to regret wearing jeans. Again, it was really warm for October! We enjoyed the view of the city and La Sagrada Familia while also enjoying the gardens and all their colors. Then we made our way back down to the exit and headed towards the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona.

Our first stop was in Las Ramblas where we went to Mercat de la Boqueria, the food market in Barcelona, to meet up with one of the girls in our hostel room. We walked through admiring all of the fresh produce and food options. This was probably one of the best European food markets I have been two. That might just be because of the fresh cups of juice one of the stands was selling. It was amazing though! It was also fun to see all the candies, dried fruit, and nuts, because I have never really seen a collection quite like this in a market.

After the market it was about 4pm and we explored the streets some more, stopping in at any cute little store that piqued our interest. I loved the Gothic Quarter. It really held up to its name with the dark stone buildings and their railed terraces. Eventually we found ourselves in Sant Jaume Square which holds Barcelona’s and Catalonia’s government buildings. From there we walked to the cathedral, but didn’t go inside since we would be going there for mass in the morning the next day. So instead we explored all the surroundings. We walked through Lloctinent Palace as well as went up the Torres Romanes.

We finished exploring by walking towards the sea in La Ribera catching the Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar. It was nearing 6pm when we decided to head back to the hostel to get some rest before dinner and clubbing. I needed the rest for sure. Then we got changed and headed to dinner with some other girls from the hostel. The restaurant had really good flatbread, but I can’t remember the restaurant! But oh yeah, did I mention in Spain everything starts later in the evening? We went to dinner around 9 pm. Then we got some drinks from a convenient store and pregamed in the room until midnight when we left to go to the club. We got in trouble with one of the women staying in the room because it was about 11pm and she was trying to sleep. I felt bad but she was also an older woman staying in a room with a bunch of 20 somethings which is the average demographic of hostels. Its not an excuse so yes, we need to be respectful to everyone in the room, so we tried to be quieter.

We walked to the club with a stop at the Arco de Triunfo. Before going to the club we went to one of the nearby bars where we met some girls from New York. I liked the bar! I loved the vibe and the music was fun. I was not really a fan of the club. We headed to Razzmatazz around 2 am. Lucia heard from someone that this was the place to go, so that’s where we got our tickets for. It was fun for a little bit! We got a free drink and made our way to the Reggaeton rooms. I just wasn’t really a fan of the house music on the main dance floor. I was also not a fan of staying out until 6 am. That was when the club closed and I will never do it again. I have learned that 3 or 4 am are the perfect ending times for me. After that I need to sleep. I don’t remember much after this point other than feeling like I wanted to go back and go to bed, but I was going to push through for the experience.

Lucia suggested going to the beach for sunrise, which would have been really cool, but I wanted to go to sleep so we took the train back and I managed to get 3 hours of sleep before having to wake up to shower before our check out at 11 am.

Day 3

We went to mass at noon in Spanish. We had to take all of our stuff with us though since we had checked out. We walked over but were somehow a little late. Still we managed to find seats inside, but I definitely was not paying attention to mass. I was so tired! I feel really bad because I love mass in Spanish and I wanted to pick out all of the difference from Mexican Spanish mass. I just was really out of it. When mass finished we walked around the cathedral to take in all the beauty, which is how we came across the courtyard.

Now it was only about 1pm and my flight wasn’t until 9:20pm so we still had most of the day to kill. We started by walking over to Casa Batlló, another of Gaudí’s designs. We didn’t go inside but we only wanted to really see the outside so it didn’t make sense to pay to go inside. Here we witnessed an anti-independence group protesting. They all were holding up signs that had “NO” written on them. It was really interesting to see this because I have learned a bit about Catalonian independence in school and from my host family. It gave real life experience to this knowledge. I felt like I was finally starting to understand the Catalonia independence more and more from spending time in Barcelona.

Just a little further up ahead was Casa Míla, the last of the must-sees of Gaudí’s buildings in Barcelona. I felt this one was the least amazing of them all. It was not as colorful as Casa Batllo or La Sagrada Familia since it was a lot of brown. The only cool part was the terraces and their unique railings.

Now it was 3 pm. I didn’t need to leave to go to the airport until around 6pm, since it was about an hour metro ride to get there and I wanted to be a couple hours for the flight as I follow the two hour suggested guideline. That gave us 2 to 3 hours at the beach. We needed the rest time so it was really lucky that it was such a beautiful day. You never would have guessed it was October. It really felt like a warm late summer day.

We stopped at a sandwich place to grab lunch. It was ok but I felt like some Spanish sausages are too smokey and spice heavy for my taste. I am not saying they are hot spicy, I love this kind of spicy, but they just had an overwhelming amount of paprika. It took me awhile to finish that sandwich. We sat and ate it in a square which was enjoyable. It was fun to glimpse into the lives of the locals. I knew that Spain and especially Barcelona had a lot of third places that everyone takes advantage of. It was cool to actually see this. It’s the thing I love most about Southern Europe. People are always out doing things and seeing each other. They have a better work life balance then us Americans. They have learned to slow down so they can incorporate stuff like this into their lives. I will always remember sitting in this square people watching. That and watching the trash truck take care of the bins. It was crazy!

We spent some time relaxing on the beach and then walked around to the other side of Barceloneta where there was a market. We looked around a bit and this is ultimately where I bought my one souvenir from Barcelona, my mosaic elephant statue, because I love collecting elephant figurines. Eventually I had to say my good bye to Lucia since I had to get to the airport and she needed to take her train back to Madrid. It was a sad good bye. I was so happy to see her. She was the first and only person from home I saw while in Spain, so it felt really nice to have a piece of home again. We would see each other again soon though. I still had to go to Madrid and she still had to come to Mallorca.

So my trip to Barcelona came to an end. I hopped on the train to the airport and only got on the wrong train once, but I still managed to get to the airport with plenty of time. Security was really fast and the nice thing about taking Ryanair is that you check in online, so I was at my gate waiting for my flight to Palma in no time. I would arrive in Palma around 10pm which really isn’t that late but I was so tired. I called my mom at the airport and when I arrived to keep myself awake and I definitely took a nap on the plane. I then had to take a 30 minute bus to Montuiri so I stayed on the phone then too because it would be really bad if I missed my stop. I survived and I made it back to my bed. My host family was nice enough to let me sleep in the next day, because I was so exhausted. I told myself I would never club again and I have stood by that two years later.

So my final thoughts on Barcelona? I think it wasn’t all I thought it would be. I thought it would be my city given the way people have described it, but I actually found it to be a bit overrated. The people weren’t all that outgoing. The architecture was bland outside of Gaudí and the Gothic Quarter. I am not a fan of clubbing. The food was great though and I enjoyed meeting all the people that I did in the hostel. I think it is a city everyone needs to visit, but I wouldn’t put it anywhere close to one of my favorite cities and I think there are better ones in Spain as well. I still think it was important for me to visit here as someone who studied Spanish and International affairs and politics. The fight for Catalonian independence is an interesting and complicated one. Seeing Catalonia, I can see why they want it, but also having visited Mallorca and Madrid I see all the differences throughout Spain and how these make them better together as one united country. This is España!

This is a wrap on my weekend in Barcelona. To see more of my adventures in Spain check out my Spain page where you will see my posts from au pairing in Spain. Also stay tuned for my weekend in Madrid!