We arrived in Barcelona from Paris around 9:30pm, on a fairly comfortable and scenic 6-hour train ride. We made our way to OneFam Les Corts hostel, where we were pleasantly surprised by the thoughtful layout of our ten-bed dorm room. After being spoiled throughout our Asia travels of having big beautiful rooms to ourselves, it’s a bit of an adjustment to be paying way more to be in a shared space, but this hostel chain is really well done and we were quite comfortable there.
We headed out in the morning to explore. Our hostel was a bit of a distance from downtown Barcelona, so we set out on foot towards the center, excited to get a sense of this famous city. However, we weren’t particularly impressed with the vibe of Barcelona. We walked around looking for cute little Spanish streets, charming plazas, and cute tapas bars and were coming up empty.
A friend of Wini’s, also named Sarah, happened to be in Barcelona at the same time as us, so we met up for brunch with her friend Jenna as well. We were in stitches laughing about our various travel stories and mishaps for 3 hours at a cute little outdoor restaurant.
We said bye to Sarah and Jenna and continued our exploration of the city. We visited the famous Sagrada Familia, but it left us underwhelmed.
We recognized the scale of it was impressive, but we found the stark contrast between the old and new sides to be jarring and lacking cohesion. While the older side exudes a certain charm with its intricate stone carvings and Gothic influence, the newer side fails to harmonize with the original vision and left us feeling like we were looking at an unfinished Disneyland attraction.
Sagrada Familia has remained unfinished since its inception in 1882. With its ever-present cranes and scaffolding, it is somewhat of an eternal construction site. We recognize that it’s an iconic piece of architecture but, call us picky, it was a bit of a letdown for us.
We were supposed to join our hostel for a walking tour from the Sagrada Familia, but we weren’t able to find the meeting point. However, we stumbled upon a group of talented dancers performing gravity-defying tricks nearby and enjoyed watching them jump and flip for a while.
We decided we would give ourselves our own walking tour. Seeking the true essence of Barcelona, we strolled towards the ocean but continued to not feel impressed with the overall vibe of the city. To us, it lacked the charm we had found in Paris and Copenhagen. We felt like we could be in any city, anywhere in the world.
However, we did manage to capture some nice drone shots at the beach. I liked the patchwork of umbrellas and beach towels.
It was also cool to see the scale of Sagrada Familia from a distance. It really is massive against the Barcelona skyline.
In a last-ditch search of charm, I led the way to the Basilica de Santa Maria, which finally gave us the authentic Spanish vibes we were craving. Nestled within the heart of Barcelona’s enchanting El Born neighborhood, Basilica de Santa Maria dates back to the 14th century. It’s a true gem that captures the essence of Spain’s rich history and architectural beauty.
The surrounding neighborhood, El Born is a historic and vibrant district known for its narrow medieval streets, picturesque squares, and cultural attractions. It exudes an irresistible old-world charm, inviting visitors to explore its quaint shops, cozy cafes, and delightful tapas bars.
From there, we walked to Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf, not to be confused with Paris’s Arc de Triomphe. It was located in a cute little pedestrian area with lush greenery. We sat in the park and enjoyed the lively atmosphere.
Back at our hostel, we joined the free hostel dinner and met some interesting fellow travellers. When the rest of our hostel left to go on a bar crawl, we joined our dinner friends and went to a bar just down the street (BARcelona, lol), and had the most sickly sweet mojitos of all time. Wini has now sworn mojitos off for the foreseeable future — that bad!
On our second day, we started on a relaxed note, enjoying a rare sleep-in until 10 am. After leisurely getting ready, we embarked on a stroll through the city, stopping at the Barcelona National Museum for a Cheetah Girls-inspired video shoot haha.
Our meandering walk led us back to the El Born neighborhood, to a delightful lunch with Anna, a friend from our Komodo Islands boat trip. We savored delicious pizza and caught up with her and her boyfriend.
They invited us to evening drinks with them, in another cute neighborhood, but when we got home we fell victim to a famous Spanish siesta that we weren’t able to rally from.
The last week or so of European adventure we have been walking an insane amount every day (20-30K steps a day!), and we haven’t been taking much time to have meaningful downtime, which we had been very good about in Asia. Since our time in Europe will be much shorter we’ve been just wearing ourselves out trying to see as much as we can. But we had hit a wall, so we took the rest of the day to sleep and relax.
It was much needed, especially because the next day we were taking an early train and had to get up around 5:30am. On the day of departure, we gathered our belongings and enjoyed a quick coffee and tea, before bidding farewell to the hostel.
Navigating the metro, we reached the train station with ease and boarded our train on time. After only two full days of backpacking Barcelona exploration, we were ready to embark on the next leg of our journey 3-hours away, in Valencia!
