The Great European Adventure, Day 3: Montserrat and Barcelonafeatured
The sunlight was beaming into our room brightly, waking us up for our first full day in Spain. Even though the sun set late, the sunrise was nice and early, which worked out well for us because we had a tour to get ready for.
We’d packed some packaged snacks in our luggage, so we had a quick breakfast of some Kind bars in the room before packing up our bags for the day and heading downstairs to meet our tour.
In our pre-cruise research, we’d found a ton of great reviews for Barcelona Day Tours and since we didn’t have much time in Spain, we wanted to get in as much of Barcelona as we could. We went back and forth on which tour to book and ultimately decided on the combo Montserrat and Barcelona City Tour. Stephanie pre-booked and pre-paid for our excursion, and we were quoted a pickup between 8:55 am and 9:15 am in the lobby of our hotel.
A white van came to pick us up around 9:30 am, the delay because we were the last pickup of the tour, and we were quickly welcomed by our tour guide, Gina. The three of us were sharing our tour with 12 others, and the total group size of 15 felt perfect for the day’s itinerary. The van was plenty spacious for the 15 of us and in immaculate condition, which is always a good start to a long tour day in my book.
The tour began in Montjuic as Gina explained the history of Barcelona. Her pride of her country was obvious and she was extraordinarily jovial. We knew we were in good hands for the day.
The city tour portion of our excursion would take place on our way back from Montserrat, but Gina didn’t waste a moment in telling us about anything notable we passed, like the Olympic park and Arenas de Barcelona (a former bullfighting arena built in the late 1800’s that was turned recently into an entertainment complex. The Beatles played here in the 60s!).
It wasn’t long before we were out of the city and on the highway towards Montserrat.
Montserrat is a mountainous area in Catalonia, just over an hour outside of Barcelona. Gina told us that the word Montserrat means “saw mountain” in Catalan, and that is quite literally what the area looks like from a distance. The drive up passes by quickly, but goes up narrow, winding roads and may pose issues for those with fears of heights or motion sickness.
We didn’t know a great deal about Montserrat before this tour – we only booked the tour including Montserrat because the price difference was nominal over the Barcelona City Tour – so we listened with rapt attention as Gina described the history and our options during our visit. We’d have just over two hours of independent exploration, where we could grab a meal, shop in the market (where there would be plenty of vendors offering samples of their goods – Gina assured us there would be no pressure to buy, and she was right) or attend services at the monastery. We could see a performance by the world renowned boys choir or walk the circular tour around the grounds, or we could take a funicular down to the caves (the main funicular that went to the very top of the mountain was out of service for maintenance). There were a ton of options and I wished I had done a little more research into Montserrat because we didn’t even know where to start!
Gina really wanted us to be able to attend services at the monastery if we were interested in it and our arrival was cutting it close, so she led us on a brisk walk uphill to the monastery, where we arrived just as it closed for the beginning of services. Instead, she took us on a quick tour around the exterior before setting us loose.
After our group dispersed, Mom, Stephanie and I just kind of stood in front of the monastery for a moment and it was just so…beautiful and silent and it was almost like the world had stilled for a moment. And this sounds so cheesy but I was just standing there, looking around and trying to take it all in and I just remember thinking to myself that I couldn’t comprehend how it could get any better than this. We have beauty and history in America, don’t get me wrong. But there was something about that moment that was just so…different. It was everything I was hoping I’d find in Europe. A kind of beauty I had never experienced. We’d been in Spain for less than 24 hours and we still had more than two weeks and four other countries to visit and I just couldn’t fathom how it could get any better.
We wandered around for a few minutes as we weighed our options. Wait for services to conclude so we could go inside and see the La Moreneta (the Black Madonna)? Hike the walking trail around the mountains?
Ultimately, we decided to do what we do best: wander around aimlessly and see what we could discover. Since we didn’t have a proper breakfast, we stopped into a small café to grab our first European breakfast: pain au chocolats and cappuccinos. And it was our first lesson on European dining: food is cheap in Europe. Good food, quick food, fancy food – it’s more than reasonably priced. At home in Chicago, we could stop into a Starbucks and have a chocolate croissant and a cappuccino and it would cost around seven bucks. At the café in Montserrat, three cappuccinos and three chocolate croissants ran around €12. With the dollar running strong against the Euro, that came out to around $13.30, or less than $4.50 each. And these were flaky, crisp croissants and the best cappuccino I’d ever had in my life (to that point, anyways).
After our breakfast, we explored a small grocery store, perusing through the aisles of locally grown produce, Spanish cheeses and meats and, of course, the wines!
I wasn’t sure Mom would make it through the entire hiking trail, but we wanted to walk off breakfast so we hiked through the first part of the trail, stopping to examine the sculptures we found.
We bought souvenirs in the gallery shop, tasted the local liquors and walked through the small vendor’s market (where Stephanie picked up some cherries that she deemed the best she’d ever had). We walked down to the funicular to look around and we split a sandwich in a cafeteria and we just…took it all in. Montserrat was the one place we’d put no forethought into before we got there and it was one of the most beautiful places we visited.
We headed back towards where we were supposed to meet Gina and our van and Stephanie made a new friend. Throughout our trip, we encountered a lot of unleashed and stray dogs and cats.
As we left Montserrat on our way back to Barcelona, Gina put on a CD recording of the boys choir for those of us who didn’t get to see them perform.
I may or may not have dozed off a couple of times (motion makes me sleepy!) and before I knew it, we were back in Barcelona and Gina was directing our attention towards the main points of interest.
If I had one critique of Barcelona Day Tours, it’s that I wish we were outside exploring some of these places instead of glancing at them as we drove by in our van. We passed La Pedrera (an apartment complex designed by Gaudi in the early 1900s) and I wish wish wish I could have seen it up close instead of out the window on the opposite side of the van.
We continued through Barcelona, driving through Passeig de Gracia (which is widely considered to be one of the most beautiful streets in Europe) and the Gothic Quarter.
The next stop on our tour was, perhaps, the stop I had been looking forward to the most: Parc Guell.
Parc Guell was built in the early 1900s, originally as a housing site and eventually as a park and garden. The park is another masterpiece of Antoni Gaudi and his influence is felt in every tile, every color, every line. Bright colors splashed across mosaic tiles create the backdrop for one of the most unique UNESCO World Heritage Site’s I’ve ever visited. If you’re interested in architecture, this is a must-visit.
Gina had pre-purchased our tickets, so we walked right in. If you aren’t on a tour but would like to visit, absolutely make sure you pre-buy your tickets online to avoid long waits (because there are plenty of better places to spend time in Barcelona than waiting around in line!).
After we entered, Gina led us on a 45-minute guided tour. While part of me wished we had time for independent exploration, having Gina lead us and tell us the history of the structures, pointing out silhouettes in sculptures that would have gone unnoticed and making sure we understood the larger significance of Gaudi’s impact on Barcelona was a valued part of the experience, and her commentary was as colorful as the mosaics.
As someone whose eye always catches to anything colorful, this park was a full sensory overload in the best possible way. The colors are so brilliant and the mosaics pieced together so carefully. I’ve had a few coworkers ask me for Barcelona tips and this has been at the top. I can’t recommend a visit enough.
After our tour of Parc Guell, we hopped back into the van and headed towards our last stop: the Sagrada Familia. The Sagrada Familia is (another) Gaudi masterpiece: a church that was constructed in the late 1800s and is so ornate in its design that, to this day, is still yet to be completed. This was one of Gaudi’s last works, and he worked on it up until his death in 1926 (when the basilica was just under a quarter complete).
There are three different facades on the Sagrada Familia: Passion (to the West), Nativity (to the East) and Glory (to the South). They anticipate that the work on the Sagrada Familia will be complete in 2026, the 100 year anniversary of Gaudi’s death.
This church stands tall against the city backdrop, visually imposing and towering down on everything else. It is grand in and of itself in stature. But as Gina pointed out the details, all of the minute carvings and the story written across the exterior…it’s almost overwhelming. It’s so much to take in, in the best way possible. Our tour didn’t go inside the church, but I wasn’t entirely disappointed: we need to have something to come back to Barcelona for!
After our exterior tour of the Sagrada Familia, we had 25 minutes of free time to go inside the shops or grab a snack. We popped into a couple of stores and picked up some Barcelona souvenirs before meeting back up with the group. Some people left the tour there (their hotels were within walking distance). Once back on the van, Gina gave everyone the option of returning to their hotels or choosing a point of their choosing. When we were waiting for the driver, she told us we just had to visit La Boqueria on our visit and since it was already on our list, we opted for a drop off at Las Ramblas instead of our hotel.
We had prepaid for our tour, so there was nothing left to do but tip our driver and bid Gina a fond farewell as we hopped off at Las Ramblas. Our day with Barcelona Day Tours was utterly fantastic and if you’re looking for a guided tour through the city, I can’t recommend them enough.
When I was doing my Barcelona research, the next biggest must on my list after Parc Guell and the Sagrada Familia was La Boqueria. I read an article that described La Boqueria as a place where people gather to eat, drink, gossip and people watch, which coincidentally, are the four things I do best, so clearly this was a place I had to experience.
La Boqueria is about a five minute walk up Las Ramblas, which is kind of the tourist walk of Barcelona. It reminds me a lot of some of the stretches of Central Park: an urban jungle filled with people, food stalls and shop carts. An important thing to note is that Barcelona is amongst the highest pickpocket incident rates in Europe and Las Ramblas probably accounts for many of those incidents. Because it’s so crowded, pickpockets can swiftly and easily steal from anyone who makes themselves susceptible to it. And because of this, Stephanie insisted we all travel with those secure travel purses that are by no means high fashion but would keep our belongings safe (we’re talking slash-proof straps, anti-RFID theft protection and zippers that lock). Walking through Las Ramblas, it was clear that it would be easy to get caught up in the experience and fall victim to one of these thieves, but a couple of easy measures could ensure safety and certainly worked for us: the travel purses, keeping all belongings in front of you instead of behind you and nothing in a pocket that didn’t lock and being alert at all times.
We took our time walking up Las Ramblas, taking in the designs of the buildings lining the streets, peering at the merchandise on the carts and scoping out potential restaurants for dinner.
And then it was there, right in front of us: La Boqueria, the hub of Barcelona cuisine. La Boqueria is a veritable flea market of gastronomic treasures. You want a snack? There’s a booth for that. Looking to buy fresh fish? Fresh pressed juice? Spanish cheeses? There are booths for that. We saw some of the most bizarrely innovative cuisine being served up in La Boqueria, and some of the most gorgeous displays of produce we’ve ever seen, too. It was absolutely fascinating. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Overwhelmed by the options, we ultimately decided to dine elsewhere in a more traditional, relaxed environment, but you can bet that we’ll be back at La Boqueria on our next visit to Barcelona.
We wandered around a bit after we left La Boqueria. There are a ton of dining options along Las Ramblas, so we took our time to find one that appealed to all of us.
We took a turn onto a quiet street and found Luzia, a restaurant with an open kitchen, a cool vibe and best of all, no wait.
We were immediately seated and I was immediately taken by the open space: the kitchen and serving areas are all open, and as someone who is oddly fascinated by lines, I just couldn’t stop looking around me. This restaurant was beautiful in the simplicity of the design and décor.
The service at Luzia was top notch – our server spoke perfect English and offered up some recommendations that were spot on. We all ordered a glass of cava (#wheninspain…) and decided to split a bunch of tapas and a pizza. Everything we tried was spectacularly fresh and, in keeping with the design of the restaurant, incredibly simple. It was good food prepared well. Standouts? We had a plate of freshly shaved Spanish ham that melted in my mouth, some fried artichoke hearts that were seasoned to perfection and the burrata pizza was just sublime.
Best of all? The meal only ran us ~€71, which was more than reasonable for the quality of the food we were served (including a round of drinks). Really, if you’re around Las Ramblas, I can’t recommend Luzia enough.
We went to find a farmacia to buy the liquids we didn’t pack (shampoo, conditioner, sunscreen, aftersun, etc) and found ourselves in a Spanish market. The front of the store was the farmacia (you’ll find these designated by a cross on the exterior of the storefront), which had higher end European brands and higher prices, but when we went into the actual supermarket, there were both European and American branded toiletries at reasonable prices.
We also browsed through the aisles just kind of checking out what Spanish supermarkets are like and it was so interesting that they had so many fresh items at such reasonable prices (freshly made sangria for €1 a glass, paella for €2, fresh fruit cups for €1, even the cronut craze has made its way to Spain and you could pick one up in the supermarket for €2.75). We picked up some cava to enjoy back at the room, as well as some pastries to have for breakfast the next morning.
I noticed that some of the honey I bought in Montserrat was leaking in one of my bags, which was kind of a downer, so we grabbed some extra plastic bags at the supermarket and headed out to pick up some last souvvies in Las Ramblas before hopping in a cab for a quick ride back to the hotel.
I wanted to take a walk through Montjuic, but Mom and Stephanie were absolutely exhausted, so we compromised on walking around the courtyard.
We could even see Las Ramblas from the hotel! The views from Montjuic were really amazing.
And as we were walking along the perimeter of the courtyard, we noticed that our cruise ship was already docked!
Mom and Stephanie went back to the room to start re-packing their luggage for embarkation, but I lingered outside for just a little while longer, wishing we had one more day to explore Barcelona.
I headed back to the room before the sunset (…at 9:30 pm…) to get some packing done and take a shower. BBC News was the only English television station, so I spent the rest of the evening out on the terrace, staring out at the lights of the harbor. The Barcelona portion of our trip was drawing to a close, but we had two weeks of new places to explore ahead of us.
