This past weekend, I finally got to visit Barcelona! The bus ride is about 4 hours from Zaragoza, which is not fun, but there is wifi and it’s about 60 euro cheaper than taking the train so I can’t complain. Since Barcelona is a much larger city than Zaragoza, the transportation prices were much more expensive (7 euro for a day pass on the metro) but more extensive so we were able to navigate the city very easily and in little time.

On Saturday, we first went to Sagrada Família (Holy Family), a minor basilica, designed by Antoni Gaudí. It has been under construction for over 100 years since the groundbreaking in 1882 and will not be finished until around 2026. It’s one of the most famous landmarks in Spain and a trip that I couldn’t pass up. Later, we ate lunch at a nearby outdoor cafe with the basilica in the background. Staring at the basilica while eating lunch and drinking sangria, I realized this is exactly why I chose to come to Europe.

After lunch, we headed out to Camp Nou, the stadium complex for FC Barcelona and the largest stadium in Europe. I chose not to take the tour because it was 22 euro to just walk around and I’m admittedly not a big soccer fan. We did get free tickets to the handball game going on in one of the other stadiums so we watched that instead of going on the tour.

Sunday was more of a relaxing day and we did a lot of just walking through the streets of Barcelona. We first went to the beach on the Mediterranean and then wandered around an older area of the city. From there we went to the Picasso museum which just happened to be free on Sundays. After the museum, we had some time to kill before our bus left so we wandered around a bit more, ate, and headed back to the hostel to pick up our luggage. I really enjoyed Barcelona and I’m definitely going to go back at least once (if not 2, 3, or 4 more times) before I go home!

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