Our train from Tarragona to Barcelona was on a RENFE Regional train, meaning it was a one-class train with no assigned seating. The leg room was tight and there was no dedicated luggage racks in the cars other than the ones overhead. But the price was cheap – less than 8 Euros each for the roughly hour and a half trip. We were heading into Barcelona on the day of the outlawed referendum vote and I worried that the scenes of violence I could see the guy in front of me watching on his phone were more widespread than it actually turned out to be.
When I booked the ticket, I thought we were going to get off at Barcelona Sants and have to switch to a different train. Imagine my surprise when I realized that the train we were on was going all the way to Estacio de Franca, less than a 5-minute walk to our next apartment. I hoped that there wouldn’t be a second ticket taker checking tickets after Barcelona Sants stop and was practicing my stupid American act; but fortunately we were good to go. The Estacio de Franca is a beautiful building and I’m sad that the station is being passed over in favor of Barcelona Sants as the main terminus for much of the rail service to Barcelona. If you get a chance, go check out Estacio de Franca. This is what old school rail stations look like.
As mentioned, our next apartment was less than a five-minute walk from the station. Finally, a quick walk to our lodging! And naturally, there wasn’t anyone around to let us in. I finally broke down and switched my roaming option on so I could call the number (a few times) and got someone to finally check us in. Our apartment was in the Born neighborhood and was a recently renovated beautiful mix of modern styling coupled with features like exposed stone walls and the large floor-to-ceiling windows. My husband immediately declared that he could stay in the place for a few months. I really liked it a lot. The only negative is that the building is still under construction and the workers seemed to love slamming the door right next to our heads while we were trying to sleep. But other than that, I was super pleased with everything about the place – the furniture, the styling, the location…
The first night, we walked around the marina area which was literally five minutes away. We stopped at a tapas place along the way, which was phenomenal. Then, we walked and gawked at all of the yachts moored in the marina. We wandered for hours and stopped at a little bar that was themed like an old school explorers club and then an English pub before turning for the night. Despite my concern over the violence of the police breaking up the referendum, the streets were quiet. If you didn’t know there was the vote that day, you wouldn’t have even know it was happening
The second day, we decided to get La Rambla out of the way. I realize as I’ve gotten older that I do not like being in huge crowds of people. La Rambla made my anxiety levels skyrocket and it was this weird, grim march down the center so we could say we saw it but then got off the road as soon as we got to Placa de Catalunya, which was still filled with demonstrators. My husband was trying to walk into the plaza but I balked. I couldn’t handle any more crowds. Instead we went down some side streets and found ourselves in front of the Arc de Triomf, which was built as a gateway for the 1888 World’s Fair. There are lots of parks surrounding the area and we wandered through there for a few hours before heading back to our place to rest up before venturing out to find dinner. The Born neighborhood has a number of shops, eateries and drinking establishments and we wandered for a few hours after dinner as well.
On our third day in Barcelona, the Catalan government called for a general strike – meaning museums, Sagrada Familia, many shops and restaurants, and government offices were closed. I made reservations at what is rated the best paella restaurant in Barcelona, which happened to be about a 10-minute walk away and was open for business. It was by far the fanciest place we ate at on the whole trip. The paella was excellent and I ordered baked hake that was the best fish meal I’ve ever had. The service was flawless. The entire meal was by far the most expensive of the trip, but the experience was well worth it. After lunch, we ended up taking a walk through the Raval neighborhood, which was definitely grittier than the Born neighborhood. We were on a side street when a throng of protesters, singing and chanting filed passed us. The protests were peaceful and definitely skewed towards the younger side. I actually got a video as they passed me and although my mom always warns me not to get too close to stuff like that, it was fine. We ended up grabbing some drinks in a Mexican themed place which made me laugh because we’re from Texas, and it’s not like we never can find Mexican at home. Later in the evening, we had a real hard time finding an open restaurant that would seat us. Most of the places were closed and the ones that were open were running on limited capacity because half the staff didn’t show. We finally grabbed a table at an Argentinian restaurant and the chimichurri was amazing.
Our final full day, we went to lunch at the best tapas place I have ever been. Every single thing that we ordered was awesome. It was this tiny place right in the neighborhood we were staying in and if we stayed there for a couple of months the way my hubby was talking about doing in the future, I could see going there a couple of times a week. After, we walked around some more, stopping to purchase some sweets from a bakery. I don’t know what they’re called, but they had these tiny cupcake looking things with strawberry frosting and a chocolate base. It’s a damn good thing we walked a bit to find a park bench to sit and eat those or I would have gone right back into the bakery and purchased 20 more of them. Then, we walked some more. All told, we did about 7-8 miles every day, just walking around. We went to dinner that night late and I was really sad to realize that our time in Barcelona was ending soon. I had had a wonderful time exploring the Catalan Spain and really was happy that my husband enjoyed his first European adventure so much that he’s talking about returning to stay even longer the next time.