Five years after our last family holiday, my sister and I finally fulfilled our promise of taking my mum away for her birthday to go sightseeing in Barcelona, with my dad and brother in law as a tag along.
It was after 11pm by the time we arrived, exhausted after an evening of flight delays and waiting around, but it was nearly impossible to sleep after checking into our apartment and discovering the dining room window gave us a glimpse of the Sagrada Familia.
That small snapshot of Gaudi’s unfinished project was enough to make me feel like a child on Christmas Eve, too excited to tear myself away and close my eyes and I couldn’t wait for the next day to begin.
The other reason we were all still awake – hunger! But it was late and the area where we were staying seemed very quiet.
Luckily, our landlord suggested a Turkish café not far from us that would still be open, so the boys ventured out for food whilst we settled in to our new, temporary, home.
I was under the impression eatery’s would be open well into the night in Barcelona so I was quite surprised that there was little available. This Turkish was one of the few restaurants near us that was open till late, within walking distance and saved us again a few nights later when we fancied a night time snack.
Our apartment was on Carrera de Valencia, literally 2 streets away from the Sagrada in the Eixample district. It was a great starting point for us to get around and we got to appreciate one of Spain’s greatest landmarks at all times of the day.
When planning the trip, I had made a conscious decision not to buy a travel guide and instead work off recommendations I had found on blogs and internet sites. My dad also got in on the action and created a pdf document that he emailed out to us all beforehand with all the (plagiarised) information he had found from websites on what we should do.
Although I hate to admit it, it was quite useful. He had included information such as opening times and websites which allowed us to make a preliminary plan of action before bed.
When I look back on the four days we spent there I am actually amazed at how much we managed to achieve as a group. Too much to put into one blog post so I’ve decided to talk about each day on it’s own. That way, if you’re planning a trip yourself, it will hopefully give you an idea of the timescale needed for different places.
So after arriving safely and topping up our tummies, we called it a night.
Ready to embrace all that Sunday in Sunny Barcelona had to offer us…
