Catalonia Day 7/8: Barcelona, Final Trip Thoughts and Trip Cost

For the final two days of our adventure we headed to Barcelona.  We drove from our hotel in Begur and returned the rental car and then took the train into central Barcelona to check in to our hostel.  Yes that's right we stayed at a hostel.  We did have a private room but had a shared bathroom.  It mostly ended up being fine we honestly hardly even saw the other guests there and it was $100 cheaper than the cheapest centrally located hotel we could find.

We both needed a short nap to recharge the batteries and then we headed out.  After being in essentially small towns and the Catalonian countryside it was quite a shock being in a big city again.  There was a very neat market right by our Airbnb, La Boqueria Food Market.  It was a huge market with endless food vendors, meat, fish, flower, and lots of other vendors.  We wandered around in there for a bit.  We got some fried anchovies and something else that looked like fried octopus but wasn't.  I am going to preface this by saying you should know by now if you have been reading along that I dislike very little food.  But frankly both of these offerings were fairly stale tasting and we ended up throwing most of it away.  We settled in at a vendor that was essentially selling drinks and prepared food and had a tuna dish and a couple beers before scurrying away.

After this we wandered and wandered and wandered and didn't find much that wasn't pretty much a tourist trap type of a place.  Las Ramblas is one of the famous streets there and there were a ton of people out there but to be honest this type of "attraction" doesn't really do it for me anymore.  It is completely cram packed full of tourists and annoying huckster style street vendors.  On the sides you have extremely overpriced restaurants (and mostly bad restaurants if I had to guess) and stores.  We had a Cafe con leche at one of these places and it was TEN euro for two.  After paying between 1-2 euro for this at our previous stops this was quite the shock.  We were both wishing we had stayed somewhere a little less central at this point.

We kept wandering around and finally felt defeated by our inability to find our way out of this area.  We eventually settled on a mostly vegetarian restaurant for dinner (they did have a couple dishes with fish).  It was pretty decent to be honest although it is not my normal choice of dinner spots.  We had some spicy kale chips, gazpacho soup, Trista had a very good vegetarian curry and I had a yellowfish Risotto.  Add on the mandatory bottle of wine and this ended up being our most expensive meal of the trip ringing in at around 70 euro.

We were getting up fairly early the next day to do some sightseeing so called it a night after this.

The next morning we headed out to something many people told us was a can't miss thing to do in Barcelona, La Sagrada Familia.

Trista had to stop for a pic on this street en route to the metro station. 

Breakfast from Boqueria Market

 La Sagrada Familia did not disappoint. The crowds were pretty large but it was only maybe a 15 minute wait to get in and was one of the few things we have ever done where it was completely worth it to fight the crowds.  It is an unfinished basilica built started in 1882 by Gaudi and has been under construction since and is projected to be finished (hopefully) in 2026.  It is spectacular inside and out.  The level of detail was completely insane.  The stained glass on the inside and the different colors of light radiating through it was the highlight for me.  I will just post a bunch of pictures and let that do the talking because I won't be able to do it justice.

We tried to go to Park Güell which was supposed to be a residential community built by Gaudi.  It failed however and all that is left is the park today.  It was sold out however and so we only got to see a tiny bit of it and the spectacular view from the top of the park that the hike in afforded us.   It looked like most of it was under repair and so we weren't that disappointed.

A side note,  we weren't prepared for the hike, it was fairly intense going the route GPS took us.

Trista dying on the urban hike up to Park Güell

Scenic overlook of Barcelona 

We did make a few stops on the walk back to the subway.  One for Trista to try out a churro with hot chocolate since several people recommended it.  She said "it was really yummy!  Super rich so like one churro was probably enough to experience it haha!".

Then also had some sangria in a neat local park that was very peaceful.

The last part of the trip we decided to do something that has become a bit of a tradition for us in big cities.  Let's get off on random subway stops that aren't the main subway stops and see what we find.  This, in my opinion, is one of the best ways to actually find some out of the way stuff in big cities.

So we did this for a while.  We wandered around stopping at a few places for a snack and a drink.

We ended up down by the harbor towards the end of the night.  We sat around for a bit on the steps around it taking in the sun going down and contemplating our trip.  We also checked out the Olympic Rings down by the harbor.

The very last thing we did was go to what I can only refer to as one of the neatest locals type restaurants that I went to on the trip called Can Maño.  It was literally a hole in the wall, had a wait outside the restaurant (although we only waited a few minutes), no A/C, 5 euro bottles of wine and a very simple menu that was almost entirely grilled fish and a few options for grilled veg.  We settled on some grilled peppers, some Catalan sausage, whole grilled sardines, cuttlefish and of course some flan for dessert.  The place was packed and the plates of fish never stopped coming out of the kitchen it seemed like.  I'd rate the meal a 10/10.  It was nothing fancy but it was everything you could ever want out of dining abroad with regard to authenticity.  We also got some fun random music at one point to add to the ambiance!

After dinner we unfortunately made the mistake we make so many times and stayed out way too late just wandering around getting home.

One of our super fun bartenders on our last night 

Cool lights on a building on the way back to our hostel

We eventually did make it home for a few hours of sleep and then up bright and early to the airport to head home.

Some final thoughts on the trip.  Catalonia is a wonderful place to visit.  It is so scenic you get desensitized to it after a while.  It is also extremely affordable for a Western European destination.  Outside of Barcelona beer/wine was $1-3 and the food was likewise inexpensive.  Add in the fact that at almost every place we went all of the tax is already added into the menu price and we were surprised almost every night at dinner what our total bill was. We very quickly fell into the routine of the locals which was to eat dinner around 9pm and stay out fairly late.  This didn't make us very productive in the mornings but it was a lot of fun.  I would say if you go to definitely rent a car.  It isn't the cheapest way to do it but there are lots of things that would be hard or a real pain to do if you didn't have one.  It also allows you to travel at your own pace.  Yes the parking sucks and that and the gas are both expensive. Obviously this doesn't apply to Barcelona, there is enough mass transit there you do not need one.

People are always curious about how much these trips realistically cost.  We have posted some about making these trips affordable so let's practice what we preach and divulge what we actually spent for the 8.5 day trip to Catalonia.  You could have done this cheaper by not eating out as much.  I think we ate all but maybe 2-3 meals at restaurants on this trip, but with how inexpensive it was everywhere (minus Barcelona) that was hard to not do.

Cost per person(so multiply this x2 to get our total for both of us):
Flight: $280
Parking near DFW: $50
Gas driving to and from DFW from OKC: $20
Rental car for 7 days (includes insurance): $140
Gas, Parking, Tolls: $55
Entrance Fees to Attractions: $50
Mass Transit/Taxi: $35
Hotels: $350
Food/Bev: $420
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Total $1,400

If anyone has any questions on traveling to the region I am sure we would both be happy to answer them.  Until next time...