Barcelona (Barthelona)! What an amazing city to visit! While planning our 2019 European adventure, which I admit I didn’t take too much part in, I left that to the wifey. But I’ll tell you what, it was one of our, if not our favorite, cities we have ever visited. We arrived in Barcelona by car, which we rented in Roses, Spain. The drive from Roses was uneventful, but it allowed us to take in the views of the countryside of that particular area of Spain and It. Was. Beautiful. I had no idea there was so much open countryside in Spain. Every time we drove by what appeared to be an abandoned house or what looked to be a small castle Kelli would say….”Oh there’s one we could buy!”. As cool as living in a castle would be, the reality of the undertaking of that type of purchase and renovation in a different county on a different continent would be more than I would want to chew. I digress.
Once we arrived in the city is when the adventure really began. I consider myself a good driver, but man, the driving in Barcelona was nothing short of intense…mostly for my passengers. The sheer amount of traffic, the noise, and the number of scooters that mobbed around the cars was insane! The biggest challenge, again, was the fact that we didn’t have cell service without WiFi, so finding our way in an unfamiliar city was nothing short of an adventure. After navigating the rush hour traffic, finally finding a place to fuel up the rental car, and actually finding the rental car return is when the adventure really began.
We began and ended the trip with walking around 7-8 miles a day. I had big aspirations of working out frequently while we were there, but the amount of walking definitely kept my body, legs especially, feeling like I had a good workout everyday. I did take my TRX, as I usually do when I travel, and conveniently there was a metal bar inside of the Airbnb that I was able to hang it from to do some extra upper body exercises.
1. The Gothic Quarter where we found a Roman wall dating back to the 4th century.
2. La Boqueria. A public, outdoor market that has been in service since the 1200’s.
3. La Sagrada Familia. An absolutely stunning architectural structure like I have never seen that has been under construction for over 100 years.
4. Las Ramblas. A mile long street full of tourists, food and shopping and crawling with vendors of all sorts…some legal, some illegal.
5. Last, but definitely not least being a rock climber, La Foixarda Tunnel. This is a tunnel that is about 48 meters long and 15 meters high at the apex, with climbing holds glued to the walls that is free for anyone to climb. That may be number 5 on this list, but it was definitely not number 5 on mine.
One of the craziest things about Barcelona was the fact that their lifestyle really is what you hear about. They really do siesta for several hours in the afternoon, dinner isn’t until at least 8pm, and it is not at all uncommon to see literally everyone, entire families included, walking the streets and socializing past midnight.
There are absolutely more places than this to visit, and we certainly did, if you are willing to walk all day and all night you can fully experience all this beautiful city has to offer.
Have you been to, or are you planning a trip to Barcelona? We’d love to hear your stories and adventures!
The Radventures 