October 12th

Our 2023 Summer holiday crept up on us a little; having been booked for several months, nestled towards the end of October and immediately following a Tinker family trip to Wales. Pip & I were off to Barcelona – a first for her, and a second for me (Although I class it as a first, as the last time I was there was a means to an end: catching a flight home from a trip to Girona with some cycling pals). We set our alarms at 5, leaving enough time for some last-minute checks, a brew for the car and a quick shower before a half 5 set off.

The weather was slowly turning autumnal over the prior few weeks, but at that time in the morning, the cold came as a shock to the system. The car soon warmed up as we headed down the M61. We took Pip’s car for the journey, as mine had let us down the week earlier with an unexpected “engine failure – service immediately” error and a corresponding side-of-the-road oil top-up, on the way to rural Wales. My limping car was a bit of a mechanical representation of myself this week. Nothing serious, but I was weighed down with a runny nose, stuffy head, and achy body. Enough to slightly dampen the usual holiday excitement, but not enough to winge about (so long as this couldn’t count as winging)

The wait at the airport wasn’t too bad, after sailing through check-in and security. A little foray into a WHSmith to pick up a meal deal which killed the remaining time, each opting for a wrap, Starbucks frappe and a snack. The pilot was a jovial American, who insisted on calling his cabin crew Kings, Queens & princesses – 2 hours of phone solitaire later, and we touched down in Barcelona, ready to jump straight onto a 20-minute shuttle. We made the short walk to the apartment, on street Nou De La Rambla, to meet Magui (Pronounced Maggie) who was ready and waiting to let us in, show us around and take payment for the city tax that I always forget about.

Museo Nacional d’Art de Catalunya

The first port of call was the National Art Museum, which sits atop a couple hundred steps (albeit flanked by escalators) and overlooks Barcelona and the Montjuïc Gardens. It’s an easy decision, given that it overbears you right as you step off the bus, but also was a bit of a shock to the system, climbing a hundred feet in 27-degree weather.

We didn’t spend long enough in our apartment before darting off to explore to figure out the coffee machine situation, which put finding a coffee shop high on the agenda. The first nice-looking place we stumbled across, La Raposa, happened to be a Vegan Feminist Cafe, which perfectly ticked the box of ‘normal generic coffee chain shop’. It was a super interesting space – a little bar for coffee, snacks etc, and a long hallway dotted with people drinking and working off their laptops. Adored with activist-esque stickers and interesting literature My first attempt at Spanish in the wild was muted a little bit by my not knowing how to ask for ‘Takeaway’ cups. I did the classic confident start and trailed off slowly into a sheepish English; “Hola, queremos dos Cafe con leche… a… takeaway?”. I knew enough to know how to ask “How do you say takeaway in Spanish”, which set us up well for the rest of our trip, as we ended up getting plenty of coffee para llevar. There was a bit of confusion with the coffees, as I’m not sure they get asked to do takeaway all too often – we ended up with two small plastic takeaway mugs – similar to what you’d get at a festival. It was an interesting choice, but they set us up well for the rest of the day as something to use at the public water fountains.

Barceloneta

We headed down towards the port, via the various market stalls, a 7-foot tall ‘Sully’ mascot and an ice cream shop, which saw us come away with a couple of cones. Strawberry for me, and ‘Turon’ for Pip, which we later learned was some form of Nougat?

We continued to blindly wander, dropped into plenty of cool shops, a trendy cafe called Bon Vent and popped out near a club called “Bagdad”. Not only was it a terrible name for a nightclub, but we’d seen it advertised on a giant billboard on the way from the airport and joked about how I was going to treat Pip to a wild night in Bagdad. Turns out, now we were up close, it was also a strip club. I didn’t know the Spanish or Catalan for Strip club, but there were some tell-tale signs. Neon tell-tale signs.

We took full advantage of having a kitchen, as neither of us wanted to spend the evening wandering around looking for a restaurant – couple that with us being starving and just wanting an ungodly amount of pasta. Linguine, chorizo (when in Rome!) and a couple of tins of tomato later, and we were tucking into our tea with ‘Marieta’ by Javier Krahe playing out the little CD player in the apartment, doors open to the street. It was the first Spanish CD I spotted, hidden between ‘Keane’ and ‘P!NK’. Despite having never heard of him, it was the obvious choice.

There were a couple of power cuts that made it difficult to get the Chromecast working (which I thought was a big brain idea to use, and turned out great), planting a couple of seeds of doubt in our minds that maybe this was a regular occurrence for this apartment block. Thankfully the dozen or so minutes of blackout on the first night was all we experienced over the entire trip, even though day 01 Laurence and Pip didn’t know this.

October 13th

We didn’t sleep all too well on the first night (Or any of the nights, for that matter), but Pip struggled more than I did. The bed was okay for the most part but it was one of those mattresses without much integrity, leading you to roll into each other. Not in a cute way, but more of a ‘Why is my back so twisted’ type of way. We chalked it down to one of the trades off of an Airbnb Vs a Hotel, and we both wanted the local vibe and the kitchen!

The morning after repeated the night before, as we sat at the table, doors open, CD player on, before heading out at around 11. Our first stop was a coffee shop just two streets down, ‘Forn Miro’. Yesterday, we were shocked by how cheap the coffee was from our Vegan Feminist place, but the same was true of this place too. Two coffees, two croissants, and a twisty almond stick thing – all for under £6.

La Rambla

We wandered parallel to La Rambla (A popular tourist street that goes straight from the centre down to the sea and is flooded with tourists) before turning towards it and meeting it at the bottom (By the sea). Pip spotted a jewellery stand on the markets and got herself a cute little necklace with a striking turquoise and pink gem – an ‘Unakite’ gem. We later learned it was a gem that was supposed to promote rest and good sleeping (or something along those lines). We joked that if it worked, this could be the gateway for us to become Gemstone/spiritual type people.

Spoiler: It didn’t. We’re not

We wandered through the Gothic Quarter for a while, which turned out to be our favourite part of Barcelona as a whole. Beautiful narrow streets, tall decorated buildings, courtyards, bustle, plenty of cool shops and generally a photogenic scenic spot.

We had a booking for the Sagrada Familia at 1330, so we turned back and headed north, back up La Rambla. It’s a super touristy area, but none of the tourists batted an eye at a small gentleman playing with sticks on the pavement. By sticks, I mean little plastic tubes that he banged on the floor, unrhythmically. En route was the Mercado De La Boqueria – a huge outdoor but undercover market, full of colour, smells, sounds and most of all tourists (Ourselves included, of course!) We dipped in and had a quick wander around, but it was a bit of a sensory overload for us both, so our market time was limited.

Further up the street, we entered into the more upmarket areas, as we wandered past people queuing up for the Dior and Gucci shops. Not our idea of fun on a holiday, thankfully, as we continued to slowly make our way towards the Sagrada Familia.

Sagrada Familia

I must confess, I was the victim of my own over-preparedness this holiday. I thought I was being smart in putting the various activities I’d booked into my Google calendar in the local timezone, but It was only as I pulled out a QR code for our Sagrada Familia tickets and spotted the “1230 entrance time” that I realised I’d messed up somewhere, as (at 1330) the security guard looked at my phone, then at me, then back at my phone before issuing a very Spanish grunt, and waving us through regardless.

I thought we were out of the woods of my little timezone escapade, but after passing through the tighter-than-the-airport security, I had to re-scan our tickets for entry. We were greeted by a giant flashing red light, presumably signalling that our tickets either weren’t valid out of date – some things transcend language barriers. The lady manning the scanner politely asked “Did you speak to my colleague on the gate about this?”, to which Pip & I both nodded, confidently, but were unsure of whether Senor Security’s grunt really counted as a discussion on entry validation.

The Sagrada Familia itself is an incredible place. Inside and out. The shapes, the lines, the textures, the colour and the architecture were all stunning. Not a single surface is flat or generic or even logically feasible! The stained glass windows were the winner for me. The natural light pouring in through them looked individually beautiful, but once you walked around and looked across them all, the scattered rainbow was stunning.

We’d also booked to go up the towers (the Nativity Facade) as part of our visit. This was also meant to be at a specific time, which again had me worried. As we queued to scan our tickets to go up the towers, I was building a little verse of excuses in my head (in both English and Spanish, in case that helped). As we approached the lady with the ticket scanner, I blurted out my pre-prepared statement; “We spoke to the lady at the front desk ab-” – I couldn’t even get my excuses out before she’d scanned both of our QR codes and ushered us through to the back of the 20-strong queue. We laughed about that. Firstly, she couldn’t care less about how late we were. Secondly, the fact I said “front desk” as if this was some sort of bank and not a grandiose cathedral.

Whilst in the queue for the towers, I checked my emails, only to find the Offer of Employment I’d been waiting on for a few weeks, staring back at me. It’s quite a nice tale to tell that I signed my current employment contract in the Sagrada Familia, that’s for sure.

The tower was underwhelming, but we were still glad we did it. You whizz up in a lift to ‘almost’ the top. Head across a bridge which doesn’t offer much of a view, and is so covered in chicken wire-type protection that any pictures up there are so unimpressive that you would only use them as proof of visiting. As you walk down the opposing tower, there are some special views, but mostly out of tiny little windows at awkward heights behind even thicker chicken wire.

On our way home from the Sagrada Familia, we stumbled across a bunch of paints and coffee table-type books by a set of bins. If we had more space for them or a suitable backpack, it would have been great to take a few. A local Spaniard was trying to explain to me why they were there, as he showed me some of the scratches on the abandoned art. I understood a fair chunk of what he was saying through word association – firma/sale, pintura/artist, Museo/museum etc. Still, I didn’t fully grasp him enough to confidently relay to Pip exactly why there was a pile of damaged art on the pavement!

Anita Flow

We headed slightly off route for some lunch (no thanks to plenty of road works on Avenue diagonal, which kept throwing us off), as we’d received a recommendation about a good place for lunch – unfortunately, it was full, inside and out, but this led us a little further down the street to a cute brunch spot called Anita Flow. We were both a little grumpy after 5 hours of walking in the sun with little water or food, but two coffees, a burger and the best steak sandwich I’ve ever had in my life sorted us out well and proper.

We dabbled with our first attempt at the metro on the way home, from Tetuan to Paral-lel. We almost came a cropper with it not being contactless friendly, but thankfully we decided at the very last minute to pack a few physical bank cards before leaving for the airport yesterday, and so purchased 2x tickets. (Only later did we realise the savings we could make with a multi-ride ticket, but for the foreseeable we were buying one ticket at a time like the rookies we were).

Benzina

We rested up for a few hours before heading back out to a local Lidl to top up for the week, as we’d only planned to eat out twice for evening meals this trip, and the rest would be home-cooked. We stocked up on apples, pasta, tomatoes, onions, bread, butter and other essentials, along with the obligatory 1-litre bottle of Don Simon Sangria, which we enjoyed as we put our feet up for a few hours before heading out to ‘Benzina’ – a well-reviewed restaurant I’d pre-booked for us.

I thought I must have booked the restaurant in advance for 8 pm to be more in tune with the locals, as that’s somewhat later than what we’d usually eat at. However, we realised that might not have been the case when we showed up at 1955, only to overhear the couple in front of us being told “We’re not open yet – come back in 5?” when saying they had a reservation. It’s probably more likely that I’d booked it at 8 because that was the earliest time I could book it. We looped around the block, and came back at 1 minute past 8, only to find the dark and lifeless restaurant suddenly candlelit and bustling, needing us to join at the back of a 12-strong queue to be seated in a restaurant that wasn’t even open 6 minutes ago.

We tucked into some bread, with a side of ‘Premium’ Olive oil in an authentic tin – we both had a Carbonara, which was exceptional, along with a beer for me and a glass of wine for Pip. She asked for a small but the lady who poured the glass must have taken a liking to her because the portion was anything but small. We uhmed and ahhed about getting a limoncello each (for 6 euros a piece, on the menu) after our meal, but decided against it. We certainly made the right choice, as when we asked for the bill, it came in tandem with two little shots of Limoncello.

October 14th

I got up a little earlier this morning – we’d both had another bad night’s sleep, with Pip ending up on the couch to see if that was any comfier. In hindsight, our sleeping issues were likely more to do with us both feeling ill than the bed but there’s nothing more frustrating than lying awake all night feeling tired and wishing you could sleep, so the bed got the brunt of our complaining.

I went for a run early doors, to try to avoid the heat, and Pip relocated from the couch to the bed whilst I was out. My run took me down the beachfront, then inland and west along some of the main roads towards home. 8 miles in total, but I certainly wasn’t out setting any PBs. Locked in at 8/9 minute miles and it still felt warm, muggy and difficult the entire way around – thank god for the good views and change of scenery, though!

Montjuïc Castle

We didn’t have any plans for today, so a quick browse of a map over breakfast led us to concoct a little plan to take the cable cars up to Montjuïc castle. Our apartment was just west of the Gothic quarter – sandwiched between that and the Montjuïc hills, which were gorgeous.

We planned to only do a one-way cable car, up to the castle from where we could amble down via the various gorgeous gardens. After purchasing a ticket, we queued up and eventually hopped into the cable car as just the two of us; similar to how everyone in front of us had done. One cable car per party looked to be the norm amongst tourists and locals alike. To our surprise, a couple jumped into our little cable car, from somewhere in the middle of the queue. Before we could even process it, a loud and confident “Bonjour” came out of the lady’s mouth.

The Cable car offered brilliant views out over Barcelona – thick greenery in the foreground, scattered pueblos above that, with Park Güell & the Vallvidrera mountains overlooking all of it. We made our way down from the castle, which seemed to be used as a recreation ground – tennis against the walls of the castle, archery in what would be the moat, and a strange little vehicle test driving centre – essentially lots of little roads, roundabouts and looping traffic lights.

Paral-lel

After dropping halfway down the Montjuïc hills, we arrived back at the Teleféric station (Cable car), which doubled as a metro station, but not a regular one – this metro stop was a straight line from halfway up the mountain, at a 15-degree slope, all the way down to the Paral-lel metro station, where it joins up with the regular underground. We popped out at Licea station, which is slap bang in the middle of las Ramblas. As we emerged from the metro station, we were faced with dozens of tourists all looking up, mouths open, phones out and taking pictures. As Pip & I slowly turned around and looked up, we were expecting to see some fascinating Gaudi-esque architecture. Instead, we were greeted with a lady dancing in a white dress, who’d placed a fan pointing directly up, to breezily flash her underwear every couple of seconds. A clever advert for the adjacent ‘Erotic Museum’. Pip was slowly starting to suffer from some tendinitis in her right foot, and by this point, it was giving her quite a bit of grief. We opted to slowly wander around the Gothic Quarter, dropping into the numerous artisanal shops, where the owners often greet you with a confident “Hola”, before somehow sussing us out and continuing with “…English?”.

As is tradition for us, we searched for a little Christmas Bauble to mark the trip – we found ourselves, as often happens, in Käthe Wohlfahrt. Our favourite place to hate. It’s a fancy chain Christmas Shop, but we both dislike how so few of their locations ever sell locally decorated baubles or trinkets – just generic baubles. Nevertheless, we found a couple of little birds, that loosely symbolise our trip. Very loosely. We dropped into Bar Mono for an expensive bite to eat, before limping home for a couple of ice cream sandwiches and the occasional glass of Red Wine (Sangre Torro) before rustling up a tomato pasta.

October 15th

Another day, another poor night’s sleep – at this point, it’s the norm. Pip was once again on the sofa, although she forgot this in the middle of the night, and woke up thinking the back of the sofa was a giant pillow wall that I’d erected.

I tried to beat the heat again, and boxed off another 8 miler – I headed north as far as Park Güell, then headed back down. Most of it overlapped, which somewhat goes against my usual route mapping, but in a foreign place, it’s nice to do a simple out and back so you can switch off a little and avoid constantly checking your watch or street signs.

Another traditional Spanish breakfast of toast and Coco Rocks sorted me out back at the apartment. Just as I was walking out of the shower I spotted little blots of rain falling outside, which took us by surprise. As much as rain on holiday is usually a bit of a mood-killer, there was something nice about standing on our little balcony watching the rain fall. It immediately felt cooler, and a little tranquil. At least, for us – the dozens of our neighbours who had rushed to get their ominously hung washing in didn’t seem to be calmed by it all. We did wonder why they bothered, though. Surely the rest of the day’s sun would just dry it again anyway!

Park Güell

Today was a Park Güell day – something, alongside Sagrada Familia, I was excited about. When people talk about Barcelona, there are always 3 things that crop up; the beach, Sagrada and Park Güell. We took the metro from just outside our apartment to Gràcia, just south of it. A slight detour to see one of Gaudi’s houses, along with a coffee and an egg custard, before looping back and following the array of tourists to the entrance. You can tell that without the tourists, this would be an otherwise serene and forgotten area in Barcelona. My pre-visit impressions of Park Güell were that it was a tantalising mass of mosaics, surreal shapes and intricate architecture, but the reality is that it’s got some of that, but for the most part it’s like visiting a slightly tired botanic garden. Don’t get me wrong – we loved it. It’s beautiful, and there are certainly some eye-catching features, but both of us were diplomatically assessing it on the tube home, with the conclusion being; “Glad we went, but that didn’t blow us away”. Maybe we missed something, maybe we over-egged it in our heads, maybe we’re rubbish at appreciating true beauty. Either way, we’ve been & seen!

The L4 Metro line took us 95% of the way to the Barcelona Zoo, nestled neatly into the southeast corner of Parc de la Ciutadella. The Final 5% of the journey, which by this point was down to a mere hobble for Pip, took us past a couple of tourist trapp-y Paella spots.

One Chicken Paella, One Seafood Paella, a Cerveza and a Sangria to wash down a Paracetamol later and we found ourselves at the zoo. Neither Pip nor I had been to the zoo in quite some time, and we were immediately wondering how much we were (or should be), enjoying it. Seeing some of the birds & big cats trapped in seemingly too-small cages was a little upsetting. We filled a good few hours in the relatively small zoo, though. I think we upset one of the tigers by giving it a quick look-over, before showing far more interest in an innocent little capybara, eating her tea. It had gotten to the point in the holiday where we’d ticked off a few of the bigger ticket items, were both run down with the flu, Pip’s foot was starting to give her grief, and we wished we could teleport home, heal up, and finish our holiday a week later!

October 16th

Despite starting to feel better over the week, I felt like my head was going to pop on this Monday morning – if I was feeling like that, I can only imagine how bad Pip was feeling on no sleep and 3 days earlier in the Flu symptoms. Couple that with the persistent rain all morning, and that was enough to put me off going to a run in the morning. It didn’t take much to have me opt for a morning in bed.

Arc de Triomf

Our plans today were limited. By Rain, by illness and by a persistent sore foot. By this point, we tended to revolve our day around what we could find that was near a Metro – the Arc de Triomf at the top of the Parc de la Ciutadella was just that. We hopped off at the closest station and hobbled through the crowds of tourists taking selfies in front. We snapped a quick shot for posterity. No selfies. Just fronties.

A wave of rain caught us off guard, but thankfully we’d snagged an umbrella out of a hidden drawer in the Airbnb. We sat, somewhat deflated, on a wet bench and looked for things we could do that didn’t involve much walking or spending and were suitable in the rain. It narrows things down slightly, that’s for sure – we opted, again, to wander around the Gothic Quarter – this quickly became our favourite place in the city, and the abundance of cute shops made it perfect for a slow day with no goal.

We headed into Mostaza, to check out some cute ceramics. Mis, an arty jewellery shop. Taki, Maxo (an art shop run and owner by 8 artists living and working in Barcelona) as well as El Born; another local art studio with seemingly similar paintings.

Our aimless travel led us to the old Cathedral in the heart of the Gothic quarter, and onto ‘Cereria Subíra’, which is a gorgeously vibrant and intricate candle shop, complete with an authentic winding wooden staircase.

Ham, Avocado & Mango

We shared a light lunch in a less touristy part of the quarter. An interesting selection of sandwiches, to say the least. I opted for a Ham, Avocado, and Mango, before swapping half with Pip and sampling her Bacon, Chicken and jam sandwich. We headed home, hoping this top-up would keep us satiated until our Tapas later on at Sensi. Sensi was a recommendation and was nestled somewhere north of Barceloneta. A cute little two-story Tapas restaurant, which came highly rated. A glass of ‘Xino Xano’ for me, another Sangria for Pip, and a hearty selection of tapas dishes; Suckling Pig Croquet, Vegan Roast Chicken Croquet, Baby Chorizo, Patatas Bravas (Obviously) & a Chicken Nikkei all sorted us out.

We’d managed to get ourselves hooked on a new Netflix series, Painkiller, which goes into dramatic detail about the US Oxycontin problems. We ambled home, knowing we could squeeze in another episode before bed.

October 17th

8 seemed to be the magic number for me, in regards to running. For some reason, I’d found myself ticking off 8 miles every time I headed out. It felt a little longer than my usual distance back home, but now so long that the holiday felt like a training camp. Plus, 4 miles is a nice distance to get out and see things, then loop back. I headed out West this morning and came back via Montjuïc. A stop off at our regular Forn Miro café for 2x croissants and one of the most twists. I tried to ask the lady what it was called, but her response was both too quick and contained far too many words I’d never heard before. However, she followed the flurry of Spanish (or Catalan) words with a simple twist of her finger, down from her ear. I took it to mean that the pasty we’d be calling an almost twist was something curly-related. The Almond Twisty thing seemed a better descriptor.

El Dia de la Playa

After another typical Spanish breakfast of croissants and Choco Rocks, we hopped on the metro again out towards Barceloneta for a bit of a beach day. However, we’re not really a lie-on-the-beach-all-day kind of people. Instead of taking the only two (by now, slightly damp) towels in the apartment, we opted for large bin bags to sit on, on the sand. To me, this was a genius idea: Lightweight, water & sand proof, easily packed in our tiny sling bags, and if need be we could bin them after our beach morning.

In practice, they were every bit as logistically perfect as I’d imagined, but what I didn’t plan for was how hard it would be to get rid of the beach-sellers, who kept approaching with “barato” ‘cheap’ beach towels that they wanted to sell us. “Estamos bien, estamos bien. No, no” I would shout back, continuously, whilst gently laying down and spreading out mine & Pip’s black bin bags. They must have spotted us a mile off!

Teleféric a Estació Miramar

We only managed an hour or so on the beach, people-watching and chatting away, before we upped and wandered along the front and back, sharing a quick coffee in the beachfront cafes.

There are two cable cars, or Teleféric, (that I know of) in Barcelona:

• One takes you from Halfway up Montjuïc to the final ascent up to the castle. It’s modern, fast and runs constantly, with a carriage rolling past the queue every 2 seconds or so.
• The other takes you from the port to the eastern point of Montjuïc; Estació Miramar. In contrast: it’s old, rickety, a little slower, has no seating, filled with people squashed in together with two parallel lines running out and back, meaning you need to wait 5 minutes for each car.
  
  
  

We had already ridden the first one late last week and had our sights on the latter. Despite mainly being a tourist attraction, given the location of the metro station, this rickety old steel-framed wooden box cable car was the most efficient way to get home (In this situation I was calculated by the least number of steps to the destination). Not only did we tick it off our list, and experience the elevated scenic views of the port, but it placed us at the top of a hill, half a kilometre from our apartment with only scenic gardens in between.

Despite our best efforts to stay for long at the beach, by the time we got home it was barely past 3. Pip had spotted some little tapas spots on our street that she wanted to experience and show me; they operated on what’s best described as an honesty buffet. Faced with an entire afternoon and evening ahead of us, in nice weather, we took ourselves out for a mid-afternoon tapas tasting session.

The tapas worked by utilising little sticks. Some sticks dignified €2.50, some signified €1.90. You go to the indoor buffet, grab all the tapas you want, and keep the sticks for the waitress to count up at the end and add to the bill. It was s great system but we don’t agree it would get dangerous real quick if you were hungry and a few more pints down. We finished off with s couple of tiny cheesecake and chocolate mousse-style tapas desserts.

October 18th

In my eyes when booking flights, an early outbound and a late return is perfect. More bang for your buck, you could say. That’s exactly what we managed to do for this trip, with our return flight home departing at 2115. However, when faced with being evicted from our Airbnb at 11 am, lugging a 19kg suitcase, two sling bags and a backpack around the often-cobbled street of Barcelona in 25-degree heat whilst trying to avoid walking too much – suddenly our almost-past-our-bedtime flight seemed a little poorly planned.

We woke up late, and I headed out for a final Barcelona run, only to be humbled by the heat a couple of miles in. I turned back; partly out of fear of overheating, partly trying to avoid having to pack soaked through running gear. I still managed 4 miles or so. We took our time with packing up, hoping to make the absolute most of our 11 a.m. checkout. A bit of suitcase squashing, tidying up, sandwich making, and using up the last of the easily consumed liquids and foods in the fridge passed the time nicely before we headed out for our final day.

Federal

We headed East, out towards the same area as our second night’s evening meal. We picked up two Cappuccino’s from ‘Federal’, a local café which seemed mostly populated with remote workers, and left little room for casual coffee drinkers. We could see why, though, as the coffee here was exceptional. Everything we did today was an exercise in enjoying the passage of time. We spent the best part of an hour sitting on a bench drinking a coffee, Pip took herself into a local ‘Mignon’ vintage retro shop before we ever so casually looked around on Maps to find somewhere to eat pre-made sandwiches.

It didn’t take too much suitcase pulling to make me realise that wherever we ate lunch had to be easily accessed by metro, or very close by. I managed to find the closest park to a metro station in the whole of Barcelona; up in the University District, at the end of the L3 Metro line.

Parc de Pedralbes

Parc de Pedralbes was a gorgeous, but rather concentrated, park just across from the University, on the other side of a busy road. Paths lined with sand and fine rocks meant we turned a few heads, dragging our big purple suitcase through it, whilst searching for a shaded bench to camp out for a few hours. Not long after pushing sitting down, we were interrupted by some colourful green birds grooming each other – parrot-esque, and a little prettier to look at than the regular pigeons.

Instead of exploring the park together, encumbered by luggage, we decided to take it in turns. I watched the suitcase and various bags whilst Pip took herself off for a post-lunch wander, then after she’d finished her loop I did the same. Again, we managed to kill a few hours here, whilst several different university students came, ate lunch, and went; we were the one constant in the park all afternoon.

Heading back towards the big Plaza Espana roundabout, we headed to a nearby Starbucks to spend the remaining two hours of our day drinking a slowly melting Frappuccino each. It was whilst sat in Starbucks that Pip checked her emails to find a conditional offer for a new Bereavement Midwife and Midwifery Preceptorship role waiting for her. How strange that in one holiday, we’d both accepted new jobs!

We took the Aerobus back to the airport, which got us there 4 hours early – a new record for me. My only prior experience of Barcelona was the same as today. The tail end of a cycling trip where myself, my dad and two other friends moped around in the heat dragging suitcases and waiting out the clock until a late departing flight.

We queued up to check in our baggage at the airport, only to reach the front and be told that we couldn’t check in until 3 hours before the flight, which was in 20 minutes. We’re not ones to kick off and also didn’t care too much about efficiency given that we had so much time. We took ourselves to the back of the queue and started the attempt again, knowing full well it would take us longer than 30 minutes to reach the front again. A victory lap, you could call it.

We sailed through security and settled for a Large McDonald’s meal as a pre-flight treat. A large Big Mac, Fries, 4 Chicken Nuggets & A White Chocolate and Oreo white chocolate McFlurry was exactly what we needed.

“You ever seen someone wheelie a wheelchair” we had shouted at us by a little Irish kid, as we headed towards our gate. What followed was 3 children all simultaneously trying to pop a wheelie in the airport accessibility wheelchairs they’d commandeered. One of whom fell straight on his back.