We finally arrived to Barcelona early Saturday morning and first took a stroll down La Rambla and we checked out the cities largest market, where I had the most delicious strawberry banana fruit juice. Then we made our way to the port,  walking down the beach and then back up through the Gothic neighborhood. We stopped into a tiny place for lunch where we had delicious tapas and the best sangria!

Christopher Columbus Monument

Beach Volleyball Anyone?

After a quick trip back to the hotel and a short nap, we were up at 4:00 am that morning, we set out to see Gaudi’s houses, but unfortunately the one that Nick wanted to see, Casa Mila, was covered in scaffolding so we decided not to go in. After a quick browse through the bookshop, we made our way to a close by tapas restaurant where we had cervezas and a tapas sampler. Afterwards we made our way to Parc de Montjuic as recommended by one of Nick’s students who studied in Barcelona a couple years ago. This park is where they have the magical fountain, and on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights it puts on a wonderful choreographed light and musical show. 

Casa Battlo

Magic Fountain

Sunday the weather was beautiful so we took advantage and headed to Parc Guell, a local park designed by Gaudi. I hate to say but we got sucked into paying the €8 to enter a specific section of the park and in my personal opinion it wasn’t worth it. Other parts of the park were just as beautiful if not more and they were free! But nonetheless we enjoyed our time out there. 

Parc Guell

Antoni Gaudi’s home

Parc Guell

Afterwards with the sun still shining we headed back to Parc Montejic as there was an architectural project that Nick wanted to see, The Barcelona Pavilion. While I wasn’t thrilled about this, it did not disappoint, the simplicity of this pavilion was beautiful. 

Barcelona Pavilion

Sunday night we enjoyed a very lovely dinner with Miguel, the director of Clemson’s Barcelona program and his wife Mercedes. They asked us to meet them at their casa first, I’m pretty sure so they could show it off, but it was pretty nice 😉

Monday while Nick sat on reviews I kept myself busy by taking one of the free walking tours, but when I arrived an hour too early I decided to go back to the cathedral where I stumbled upon mass in a side chapel. I took a seat and enjoyed my first mass in Catalan.

On the walking tour we visited where Christopher Columbus celebrated his finding of America, the Jewish district, Barcelona’s “Central Park” and much more. Later that evening Nick and I met up with his boss Kate and the Clemson students for dinner.

Prior to our departure we visited Sagrada Familia, we unfortunately could not visit the towers due to high winds, but the basilica was just spectacular. I could not get over how beautiful the stained glass windows were. We were able to watch them install some of them. As most of you know this basilica is a work in progress and they don’t expect it to be completed for another 14 years and they have been working on it since 1882! 

All in all it was a good trip, our weather was wonderful, we did not have a bad meal and we got to see some of the wonderful sights in Barcelona. Next up is our last week long student trip to the cities of V’s – Vienna, Verona and Venice!