Barcelona Photo Diary

Way before our final exams even started, three of my friends and I decided that we deserved some time away from all of the stress the year leading up to our graduation had brought us - and what better place to visit than the city where you can combine both beach days and some intense sightseeing?

I was getting more and more excited in the lead-up to our vacation, but I never could've imagined all the incredible things I'd get to see and do during my time in Barcelona. As the city has so much to offer, I was constantly snapping away with my camera - I took over one and a half thousand photos, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite pictures from the past week!

Day 1

Font Màgica


Our plane left the airport shortly after 3pm, so our first day in Barcelona was rather a first night -  after two hours of flying, it took us another one to travel to the city center and what felt like an eternity finding our Airbnb. Upon arrival, all we did was drop our bags and change before we headed out.
We didn't get to do much - after dinner we headed to the Font Màgica, which is located near Parc Montjuïc and has, as the names suggests, displays the most incredinle trick fountains I have ever seen - you can catch them from 9.30pm to 10.30pm.


Day 2

Monument a Colom

Placa Reial

El Gòtic

La Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia

Our first full day of the trip was definitely one of, if not the, busiest. We explored a big part of the city by foot, visiting the Christoph Colombus memorial and the adjacent Port Vell before we ventured into El Gótic, one of Barcelona's prettiest neighborhoods - I could've spent all day chilling at Placa Reial or marvelling at the district's architecture.

After doing some damage in the many shops located near the famous Ramblas, we had dinner opposite of Barcelona's cathedral, La Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulàlia. Not only is the church incredibly impressive by itself, but when we were there, there was a live band playing on the front steps and everyone passing by started randomly joining in in what appeared to be a folk dance - one of the cutest, most quirky moments of the trip.

Day 3

Platja de la Nova Icària

After walking over fifteen kilometers the day before, we decided that it was time for a beach day. After doing some research online, we opted for Platja de la Nova Icària as it was said to be further away from the tourist-y beaches and to be mostly visited by natives. 

It was a good thing we looked that up because the beach wasn't crowded at all, the crowd was really chill and the area was very clean as well - it's safe to say that I haven't felt this relaxed in a really long while.

What's also a plus is that, in order to get to the beach, you'll walk past the Olympic Village and the Olympic Port that were both built for the Olympic Games in 1992

Day 4

Parc de Montjuïc

 

The Olympic ring

Parc del Mirador del Poble-sec

View from our cable car

Barceloneta

Saturday was all about views. We went back to Parc Montjuïc, but this time went past the fountain and hiked all the way up to some of the lookouts the mountain has to offer. Looking out on such a huge, beautiful city really has a way of making you feel small, huh?

Besides several lookouts, you can also find one of the city's four Olympic areas on Montjuïc - not only is that Olympic Ring more than impressive, but the entire area had such a calm, chill vibe about it with all the trick fountains and plants around it. I wish we could've stayed there for longer!

Afterwards, we spent some more time walking around the mountain and somehow wound up at Parc del Mirador del Poble-sec, from where you could take a cable car that would take you from the mountain all the way down to the beach. Best eleven Euros I've ever spent! Not only was the view over the sea and port we got during our ride incredible, but we also ended up in Barceloneta, an incredibly cute neighborhood that is home to Maremagnum, one of the biggest shopping centres I've ever seen. I bought so many clothes there that I actually struggled carrying them home - how does a haul sound? Please let me know in the comments!

Day 5

Park Güell

Gaudí's works in Park Güell

Even though the pictures suggest it, this day wasn't a walk in the park for us - especially in the morning. After being denied access to the Sagrada Familia because we didn't realise that you can only buy tickets online (I mean, seriously?), we went on to Park Güell, where we wanted to buy tickets to explore Gaudí's work - only to be told that the next entrance time we can purchase tickets for was 8.30pm. It was around 1pm. Can you imagine the frustration?

We ended up purchasing those tickets anyway, because better to see the restricted area late then never, right? To pass time, we first looked around the unrestricted part of the park, had lunch and then went to check out Camp Nou, FC Barcelona's football stadium.

After ticking all of that off our list, it was finally time to head back to Park Güell - the good thing that came with our late entry time was that we got to watch the sunset from the mosaic lookout! Gaudí's houses, however, closed just before 9pm, so we sadly missed out on seeing them from the inside.

Day 6

Platja de la Barceloneta

After the combination of tons of walking, shopping and nights out had eventually washed over us, we decided that it was time for another beach day on Monday. This time, however, we didn't want to spend so much time travelling to the beaches further away from the city center, so we opted for Platja de la Barceloneta, the beach that appears to be most popular with tourists.

Compared to our first beach day, I've got to admit that Barceloneta's beach was a lot more crowded, there were vendors making their rounds that I hadn't missed at the other beach and it wasn't as clean either - however, it wasn't entirely bad. When we walked up the beach for around five minutes, we found a spot that was a lot more quiet, so we still got to spend the day anjoying ourselves and sunbathing.

Day 7

Food at Mercat de Sant Josep

Our last full day was mostly focused on shopping and, in the case of my friends, returning items that were purchased during the trip and that they ended up not liking after all.

Also, while strolling up Las Ramblas, we spotted Mercat de Sant Josep, a huge food market that friends of ours who visited Barcelona last year had recommended to us.

Let me tell you, that market hall was my personal heaven. All different kinds of smells surrounded us once we set foot in there, and because there were so many different kinds of goods to be had, we ended up trying quite a lot of food, such as those handmade chips on a stick I got, or the churros of heaven (that I technically bought right outside the market hall, but still.) I didn't remember to take photos of the other foods, but we also tried some Tortillas and the dreamiest smoothies I've ever tried.

Day 8

Sunrise at Platja de la Barceloneta


After spending our last day eating and shopping our way through Barcelona, we wanted to spend our last night partying it up in one of Barcelona's great clubs. As faith would have it, the queue for our club of choice, the Pacha, counted probably three or four hundred people, so after spending about one and a half hours waiting in line, we opted for Catwalk, which turned out to be the best idea we could have had!

After dancing the night away, we sat down by the beach and watched the sunrise - the only downer was that the beach was covered in litter, which wasn't the case when we were there on Monday.
Afterwards, we took the underground back to our apartment to pack, and then headed to the airport to fly back home.