Thursday, October 10, 2024
If you haven’t been around and want to start from the beginning:
Spain! The Back Story, the flight, and Days One and Two!
Ok, we had just left off on Wednesday evening. We arrived in Barcelona around 1:00, dropped our luggage off at the apartment, and then hit the ground running. One of our kids loves aquariums so we split up at the Barcelona harbor and the kids went to the aquarium and Tom and I had so much fun wandering around looking at the water, the boats, and everything else there was to see. There is a mall called the Maremagnum there, too. We found out the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup race was going on and we saw some of the boats on display. We talked to the lawyer for the Red Bull boat, too. That was cool. We were happy to find water bottle fillers there for the event. We carried our own water everywhere we went and it was a good call.
The Red Bull boat:
It started lightly raining but it wasn’t a big deal.
I took tons of photos. The hardest part of blogging is picking what photos to include out of so many on your camera roll!
So, we met back up with the kids and went to the catamaran booth and they had cancelled our trip for the night due to the rain and choppy water. But, they rescheduled us for the following night.
We walked toward our place for dinner and saw such beautiful things on the way.
The rain just added to the charm of the old streets.
We picked a tented outdoor seating restaurant facing the cathedral in the Plaza Nova for our dinner.
For this trip I made zero reservations. It was nice to just decide on the fly for the most part.
This was probably our most upscale meal of the trip. I ordered artichoke flowers for a tapa:
Pan con tomate:
And, then I ordered a fish dish and it was really good. I didn’t take photos of all the rest because I sometimes have criticisms of my photo taking!
We ate and then walked back to our apartment. We hadn’t settled in there much since only being able to get in at 3:00 that day.
The next morning I wanted to visit this place I had seen on Instagram!
It was adorable. What has social media done for travel, though? We saw so many people posing and making videos and what seemed like just trying to get shots for the ‘gram.
After the Corgi cafe, we walked through the market. So interesting! This market was way better than the one in Madrid.
Then, it was time to Uber to La Sagrada Familia. It was pretty far from where we were staying. I had been twice before.
We had a guide in English and this really old sound system to be able to hear him. It was horrible. We couldn’t understand his English, there was no room for questions, and this thing was just so bad. Kids finally gave up and wandered off and I sat in the pew and looked around. Tom is the only one who stuck with Victor.
After the Sagrada, we had entrance tickets to Park Guell. Well, our kids wanted to go shopping and look at vintage clothes and comic books and things they had seen earlier. So, we split up at 1:00 ish and made plans to meet at the harbor at 6;00 for the boat. The bad thing about the Barcelona Airbnb is that they only gave us one key. In Madrid, having two keys to the apartment was really nice. I need to remember to ask about that.
The walk was 1.5 miles and we had plans to stop along the way. It was all up hill. Erica couldn’t believe we didn’t take a taxi when I told her. I think this is the day I hit 23,000 steps. We stopped and had a drink and a small lunch. Tom had empanadas again and I had a bocadillo (sandwich).
We thoroughly enjoyed the park and we enjoyed just the two of us at this point to be honest. It had been a lot of time of togetherness and some of us were getting cranky with each other.
We were happy to be reunited at the water and they had had so much fun and had to put their purchases in a locker because they couldn’t get in the apartment. We were going to have to use those luggage storage lockers the next day so they found out the deal for us.
We saw a car on the water! This might have been part of the America’s Cup? There was a floating device below the car, but it looked really crazy!
Our boat;
A singer serenaded us and she was great!
It was really a highlight for me to get to be on the water and see the sunset.
After, we walked around and headed back to our neighborhood and ended up at a Turkish place that still had patatas bravas!
So, this was the end of Thursday night and on Friday we would have to vacate the apartment and head back to Madrid for our Saturday morning flight home. We did some packing back at the apartment.
I made coffee in the Nespresso in Madrid and enjoyed it on the patio, but in Barcelona there was no coffee maker at all and no patio, but there were several coffee shops on our street.
So cute!
Tom joined me and we ate a small bite.
Then, the kids were ready and we took our luggage to a storage place where they had gone the day before and we paid for our luggage to be kept until our train that night. That can be dicey with check in and check out times and train arrival and departure times. We were without a home base from 11;00 until our train at 9:25 that night but it was fine.
The kids got some coffee shop breakfast to go and then we really had no plan except to see what we hadn’t seen. I kept the last day in both Madrid and Barcelona loose for us to do that and it worked out well.
We found a flea market and I bought two photos of the Sagrada that can be framed!
We happened upon the Picasso museum and did that!
We really managed to make 11-8 go by quickly! We will leave off at around 1:00 on Friday in Barcelona and then will end with the next post and my deep thoughts and possibly how we packed!
I may do a Friday Favorite post tomorrow and the trip post next week.
Gracias,
Amy
Coffee and Cocktails at the Casa 
That catamaran trip on the water looks so lovely! That’s too bad that the audio tour was so bad but wow are those some lovely stained glass windows!
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Was def. a highlight for me. yeah, but oh well. we were so lucky to be there on a sunny day to see the light come in!
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The hardest part of returning from a trip is writing a blog post about it! But you make it look easy! I torture myself with what to share and not share and of course the photo overload is real!
Spain looks great though and I think you had the perfect vacation for your family! They are so lucky that you do all the planning and take everyone’s wishes into account. You can plan a trip for me anytime!!!
xo,
Kellyann
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So true! But, you are so glad you did for your memories.
I am not sure I am on a professional level, but would love to!
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I talked about your amazing travel recap posts last night when I was on the phone with Marilyn. I love reading them because it puts us there with you. I also love your honest recounts of how things went, like when y’all became grumpy from too much togetherness, for instance. I totally feel that and have experienced it on family trips. I’m looking forward to the final post and hearing about your packing. You should do a “things I’m glad I took” and “what I wish I had brought but didn’t” type post. Tanya did one of those recently and I loved it. I always overdo my posts with pictures, because I take too many to choose from. I love the pictures, though!
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Awww thank you!
Great idea!
I did some of that but maybe not enough for tomorrow’s final post.
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I’m glad you got your sunset cruise! I have some thoughts still to share but can’t quite get myself in gear to make them into a coherent post. They may just lie on my brain. One is definitely the way people view art, etc to get a photo as opposed to truly experiencing what they’re seeing. It’s sad. Looks like you were really ‘there’ and enjoying the people, food, and local culture which to me is more the point of travel.
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it was so fun to be on the water and definitely a highlight for me even though i planned it for tom.
i agree with that. we noticed certain people really into posing and making videos at the expense of blocking others and just not being very polite – storming in front of us, etc.
we did try to be in the moment and my heart is very full from the experience.
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Hello Amy,
Your Spain travel posts are very interesting and it’s fun to follow along. Case in point: The “walkability” of European cities and towns are a big plus, in addition to all the lovely cafés. People watching whilst sampling local delicacies off the beaten path is also one of my favourite travel-related activity. As children are getting older, it is indeed very important to consider everyone’s preferences and come up with an itinerary that works.
What other destinations are on your bucket list? Perhaps Italy or France?
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thank you so much! definitely! yes, i so enjoy this aspect of travel. yes, it is. it wasn’t perfect and we had some cranky moments, but it will be a lasting memory for all of us and maybe affect the future of our kids and what path they eventually take.
Mason has talked about italy. i have only been to venice. i would love to plan something for tom to see some of the tour de france!
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The Sagrada looks incredible! I can’t imagine the beauty of seeing it in person. I love how y’all had plans, yet kept it flexible. This is how I travel too! I also don’t like to make reservations for the most part so you can just find good local places along the way. I also enjoy all the marketplaces and I feel like that is such a great cultural experience to interact with the locals. Another great travel recap!
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it would be moreso if all the tourists would go home! ha! we tried to do that for sure. sometimes reservations make you have to leave a spontaneous thing you happen upon. i agree. i really enjoyed finding that flea market and visiting the food markets. thank you!
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p.s.-your post inspired me to collect my leftover travel thoughts and write that post : )
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Yay! I can’t wait!
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I am so jealous of your sunshine-filled stained glass in Sagrada Familia! That’s too bad about the tour guide there. And here I was feeling bad that we did the audio tour, but maybe that turned out the better option. No wonder you go 20k+ steps at Park Guell. That was quite a walk. We taxi’d up there and walked back. I love hearing how you made things work traveling with young adults. I commented yesterday but was having issues with wordpress so maybe it didn’t go through? Anyway, can’t wait to hear your deep thoughts.
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I am so sorry you didn’t get that. I wouldn’t even have thought about that ahead of time. I think it was the better option. The walk back from the park was great. But we did have to be at the harbor so we walked half and then Ubered. The walk up had me so tired and then we walked through the park which was bigger than i expected. Thank you!
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These photos are just amazing…and whoever is knocking your food photos is just wrong! What gorgeous places you have visited. I love just going with the flow when I’m on vacation, but sometimes, you need some order. That car on the water is really something!
https://marshainthemiddle.com/
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haha thank you. i think we had a good mix of plans and flow. we had one plan for each day and several possibilities we could do.
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The food looks amazing! Corgi cafe – stop- so fun! It’s neat you all can split up and do your own thing. Perks of having older kids!
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Definitely fun for me to see the food and try new things. it was very instagrammable and fun to see. it really is a perk of having older kids.
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Wow! You all did so much! The trip sounds amazing- I think you picked the perfect time of year to go! Looking forward to seeing you and hearing more!
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Wow! You all did so much! The trip sounds amazing- I think you picked the perfect time of year to go! Looking forward to seeing you and hearing more!
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