Barcelona City Guide

My sister Laura and I always do a trip abroad annually and this year we chose to visit Barcelona. A city that I fell in love with when I visited for the first time last year, I could not wait to return for a girly few days. Barcelona has it all, from a sunnier climate and a beach to amazing architecture and of course, the food. We stayed in the beautiful Praktik Garden hotel which I would totally recommend. We had a garden room, which meant we faced on to the terrace, instead of the street, which was nice and quiet. The rooms were perfect and decorated beautifully. It was a one minute walk to the metro and a 20 minute walk to central Barcelona. We walked most days, in fact we didn’t even use the metro as it’s nice to wander and soak up the surroundings.

    There are so many things to explore in Barcelona. I’d highly recommend a visit to Park Guell and La Sagrada Familia. La Sagrada Familia speaks for itself, a church built by Gaudi. It’s breathtakingly beautiful and I stared in awe of how stunning it was. To avoid queues, book in advance, print your tickets and walk straight to the front. Park Guell is beautiful, its filled with stone structures, stunning tiling by Gaudi and fascinating buildings. At the top of Park Guell is a terraced area where you get a wonderful view of the park and of Barcelona City. Non – Gaudi related things, I’d recommend doing are visiting Port Vell and starring at the ridiculous big yachts and boats, heading to La Boqueria food market and also visiting Barcelona Cathedral. Of course, we spent some time relaxing on the beach after gorging on lots of tapas food.

    When I mentioned I was visiting Barcelona again, the amount of food recommendations I got was a list longer than my arm, so narrowing it down was hard. We only managed to scratch the surface, but for brunch we found some absolute gems. Brunch is big in Barcelona, a bit like London. Can Dende is a poplar brunch spot, the brunch was delicious, we visited on two seperate occasions it was that tasty. You see the pancakes above? Need I say more? We stumbled across Brunch and Cake as we were walking to Port Vell, the brunch was the perfect instagrammable shot, it even came with a pink poached egg. If you’re looking for great coffee and healthy nutritious brunch I would definitely pay them a visit.  Caravelle was a recommended brunch favourite and it was delicious, big portions so go extra hungry.

        You must not miss Chok the chocolate kitchen when visiting Barcelona, situated just off Las Rambles. The doughnuts, cronuts and chocolate coated cookies are AMAZING. I went for a kinder bueno cronut and Laura went for a white chocolate and hazelnut cronut.

Everyone suggested Cerveceria Catalana for tapas. We prepared ourselves for a long wait, but managed to get seated within ten minutes. We ordered pretty much the whole menu padron peppers, baked camembert lollypops, prawn skewers, patatas bravas, tomatoes smeared into toasted bread and drizzled with olive oil and more. The tapas was delicious and really affordable, would one hundred percent visit again and would recommend anyone visiting Barcelona to go.

          I’m glad I got to see Barcelona again and experience it with my twin sister. We were massively excited to shop in Zara at spanish prices (and I did come away with a few new bits, it’s gotta be done), if you’re a Zara fan there is a zillion located around Barcelona. Discovering how much I love Spanish food was great, I could eat those croquettes and patatas bravas forever.      Does anyone have any suggestions for good Spanish restaurants in London? ‘Till next time Barcelona! xxxx

Next Stop: San Sebastian