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Discovering Barcelona: A Comprehensive Travel Guide

Everyone keeps talking about Barcelona. It’s easily one of the trendiest destinations on the planet and I’m starting to see why. It’s a place where you can go from coastal living to mountains in just minutes. It’s a place where you can explore charming European alleys by day, catch a live concert by night, and the city will never sleep if you keep up with it. If you want to know how to travel Barcelona, let me show you what’s layered between these perfectly shaped grids. I can definitely say I understand the hype, and you’re going to want to watch all the way to the end to get at a real Barcelona hidden gem.

Discovering Sagrada Familia

Alright, it is time to start our trip in Barcelona with a little hidden gem not many people know about. This place is Sagrada Familia. There’s not another building on this planet that looks anything like it. Something I’ve seen online for a decade now, and as I stand before it, there’s so much detail, so much unique intricacy.

A little context: this is the brainchild, the masterpiece of Gaudi. Gaudi is one of the people that shaped Barcelona into the city that it is today. He’s got several of these incredible pieces around the city, but this is the most grand and biggest of them. I just can’t get over all the detail; everywhere you look, it’s like a different detail. And I will say, she pry, but my goodness, this has been a construction site now for over a century. Literally, if you go online, they have never officially completed this place and they’re back to work again: cranes, supports, and stilts, horribly ugly canopies. This is the crazy part: it’s May 5th today, it’s not even busy season yet here and it’s booked out all the way until the 14th of May. I’m telling you, if you want to see these things, book them before you get here or go to Sunday service and then you can attend for free.

Exploring Park Güell

Barcelona just has something about it that you don’t get in every European city. First of all, tons of greenery but also a lot of style. There’s got a bit of a Gothic kind of grungy touch to the city. Where we’re going to take you next, you’ll get a bit more of the grungy Barcelona. This is one of the places designed by Gaudi; there’s a few of them in Barcelona. This park bench was designed by Gaudi, and he designed this place, but this one we’re actually going to go inside.

I’m not the museum type, but I’m so glad I entered here because this is so for me right now. Currently, I’m building my villa in Bali and so I’m geeking out on architecture. Casa Batlló was designed by Gaudi. Every square inch of this home is a statement, not a single straight line. I mean, just look at this oak door behind me, the way it’s so three-dimensional and unique. One of a kind, no details have been spared. I mean, even the tiles get darker as you go up. Gaudi even designed this home so that as you get higher up closer to the skylight, your windows shrink in size so that the lighting inside each room was the exact same. The home is inspired by nature with everything from roof shaped like cones, seashells; the banisters for the staircases are curving like tentacles. This guy was not playing by the books and I love it.

Gastronomic Experiences in Barcelona

Alright, we’re starving and I’ve got a place right next door. Think food court but make it fabulous. Yeah, this place is a vibe. This place is El Nacional. I’ve only taken one bite but it definitely got a 10 out of 10 on my first bite test. Wow, that’s real.

The city of Barcelona is at the foot of a few beautiful mountains, and on top of one of them is Tibidabo, which is this beautiful cathedral overlooking the entire city. It is one of the tallest surrounding mountains and it gets you well above the beauty of Barcelona. Also, it’s lowkey a theme park. So now if you’re not big on hiking, you can use the local airlines to get here. Here comes Tibidabo Airlines; they’ve got one of the shoddiest track records in the area, but hey, they’ve got decent legroom.

Park Güell: A Missed Opportunity

Next is a spot I really wanted to see but it wasn’t meant to be. Park Güell is a series of these gingerbread-like homes. I mean, is it just me? They look like a gingerbread house. Now, what’s inside the gate is a total mystery, but those who managed to book tickets say it looks like this, like this, and this. We’re going to have to take their word for it because we are yet again empty-handed. We are not getting in here today. This place is booked out for the next 5 days. Every single day, booked, booked, booked. This is why you watch travel guides; let others make the mistakes for you. If you show up to Barcelona unprepared, just know that you won’t get into some of these places. But the good news is there’s so much more to Barcelona than just the highlights. At least I’m telling myself that now.

Dining in Barcelona

Because food is such a big part of your experience in Barcelona, I wanted to put together the best of the best. Just the other night, we had a phenomenal but very upscale dinner. It was almost $100 and we split a burger and a steak. It was so worth it. Fismuler is this very amazing experimental restaurant that frankly I can’t even compare to anywhere else I’ve been. The food quality was phenomenal and the cheesecake was supposed to be the best, but then we found the best. Now I’m going to show you the best value meal of all of Barcelona and I’ll let you in on the best cheesecake, but tonight is Italian. Oh my gosh, so creamy, that pecorino cheese, perfect.

So one thing I will warn you guys about is that Barcelona’s food scene is amazing, but lower your expectations in service. No matter where we’ve been, high-end, casual, everyday restaurants, people look like they don’t want to be there. When you ask for something, they don’t want to serve you. It’s truly like we’re inconveniencing them at every step of the process. Everybody’s like, and then they’re like, you need to leave, we have reservations. The place is empty, empty. I would tell you to stay. Thank you. Yeah, upset with you, but the food was good though. Yeah, I’d come back.

Day Trips Outside Barcelona

Barcelona has a lot to offer, but you wouldn’t be getting the full picture if you only stayed here. But luckily, our friends Kaspar and Alina have been living here and they invited us on a day trip just outside the city, and it was pretty shocking. Just 45 minutes later, you’re driving in these stunning windy forest roads. It was extra cool that I got to be passenger princess in this beautiful Ferrari. We left Barcelona, we are in Montserrat, which is this beautiful escape. It’s about an hour away by car and it takes us through the most stunning mountains, but it brings us here to a place that Robbie can so eloquently tell us about. Where are we? I don’t even know the name. Oh, I don’t even know. Montserrat, something, that’s all I know. It’s a monastery; the monks used to live here. It no longer is an act. I don’t know, that’s not a fact. I don’t know. I don’t know. Look, this isn’t the History Channel, but I can tell you it’s gorgeous. These tiny little finger-looking mountains with an incredible monastery that monks might have lived in, we don’t know, but it’s worth a visit. It is so beautiful in here. It’s so grand, it feels like you’re on top of the world. We heard that there’s actually a lot of nice hikes in this area, so visiting could be more than just sightseeing.

Wine Country: A Hidden Gem

Easily the most incredible hidden gem in Barcelona is where I’m about to take you next. So I got out my phone for directions, but I had no data. So like a salmon swimming upstream, I trusted my intuition. I don’t think this is it. This doesn’t look like it. I guess you could say we’re lost. Hi, I’m a traveler, and one of the most annoying things us travelers face is staying connected when we go from country to country. But luckily, today’s video sponsor has our back. Wi-Fi, it’s not always guaranteed, and connecting to random Wi-Fi networks is risky business. Airalo allows you to connect all around the world. There’s over 200 countries you can choose from. This allows you to save time waiting for SIM cards and it allows you to save the money from roaming fees. It’s an amazing solution that over 10 million travelers are currently using, and I’m one of them. As a traveler, it’s a no-brainer. Download the Airalo app and using the code LeBlanc3, you’ll also get $3 off your first data plan. Looks like we’re connected and back on track.

Exploring Penedès

Next up, wine country. Wow, look at this. Straight from the mountains to the countryside, this is so dreamy. We were just saying that this looks like little baby Tuscany, but you’re right outside of Barcelona. Cheers. Guys, Penedès is more than just wine country; they also produce Cava. This is nice. Ooh, that is nice. So Cava is a competitor to Champagne, but it’s produced in this region just outside of Barcelona. Nice. Am I team Cava or am I team Champagne? I’ll never tell.

Alright, next stop of the day and no trip is complete without a paella. So we just came out here to the outskirts and Barcelona is part of Catalonia. Catalonia actually speaks Catalan, which is a totally different language than Spanish. So when we came here, not only was the menu not in English or in Spanish, it was in Catalan. The servers don’t speak English or Spanish for that matter, and so it was very funny trying to order food. But in the end, the food was good, the paella was good, and I’m stuffed. Nice trip out to wine country, a nice trip out of Barcelona, and back into the city we go.

Getting Around Barcelona

Getting around Barcelona is super easy. You got a couple of options: you got this, this, or that. That man is on a Segway. Using an app, you can rent these pastel-colored Vespas basically all over the city. The downfall is you need an international driver’s license or a European driver’s license. And you’d probably think to yourself, Christian, you’re an international traveler, you’re a man that’s seen the world, you must have an international driver’s license. But you’d be mistaken, and so we resort to these. For a major city, it’s actually pretty hard to get a taxi here. There are very few, the ones that are coming by are all full, and they don’t have Uber here. Basically, Uber is an app you can use to book the meter taxi, but even still, nobody’s confirming my ride. Oh yeah, and there’s this subterranean metro.

Experiencing Barcelona’s Coffee and Brunch Scene

Okay, another day in Barcelona. So I started my morning with an epic coffee. For any coffee connoisseurs out there, you got to check out this place. The flavors, the staff, and the experience, 10 out of 10. Later, we tried a top-rated brunch called Billy Brunch, and my meal tasted like it was an amazing meal 24 hours ago. It was stale and I was super disappointed. Not great, but redemption time hit hard. This is classic Barcelona. Somebody took an old parking garage and turned it into something beautiful. This is Parking Pizza and it is booming. The food is fantastic, the pizza is phenomenal, and the tiramisu is so good we’re still talking about it today.

Exploring the Gothic Quarter

Here we are, it is just about sunset and it’s a beautiful opportunity to get out solo. I’m listening to an audiobook right now called “Fight Right.” Amazing book, by the way, if you’re in a relationship or ever want to be in one, which I do recommend. And here we are, this is the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. Look at that, that’s Cathedral Barcelona and she is beautiful. Looks a lot like the Notre Dame Basilica in Paris, just a little bit smaller and a lot pointier. So beautiful. Live music, people out enjoying the summer, this is definitely what Barcelona’s all about. Just behind the church is an area known as the Gothic Quarter, and this is the old, old part of this very old city. So as we go through the Gothic Quarters, you’re seeing a lot of massive stone walls basically blocking out the daylight. It’s a very different feeling from the rest of Barcelona, from the upscale Las Ramblas. But I’ve taken you guys somewhere that Picasso used to frequent. You see that right there? That ain’t just another grungy Barcelona piece. That right there is the former marker of a brothel. Basically what happened inside of here is what we’re going to call expensive hugs. It’s where people used to come, gather around, hug each other very intimately, and then make money off that. And our boy Picasso used to come here, at least that’s what they think because this painting right here was actually said to have been inspired from inside these walls. Inside here, Gabasa, I think I said that right. Man, if these walls could talk, there’d be some stories. Anyways, if you want to see it, that’s a way to find it. And no, that’s not the reason I left Ruby.

Experiencing Barcelona’s Nightlife and Music

Just the other night, we went and saw the great, the one and only Andrea Bocelli. We had the most incredible night. Seriously guys, it was an amazing venue, but most of all, an amazing concert. He had violinists, he had dancers, singers, what more could you ask for? That’s one of the beauties of being in big cities in Europe, you get that extra oomph of culture, of music. And I mean, just look at that, how beautiful.

Look, I don’t know where to put this, but I got to let you in on this. When I travel, I love to find hole-in-the-wall spots, and I think we just found one. Everyone claims their grandma makes the best cookies. Well, mine didn’t; she made salmon. But if she did, I imagine it would have tasted something like this. We got a little hooked and came back the next day. Later that night, we went to a flamenco show, which is not from Barcelona but is a rich part of Spanish culture. We went here to Palau de la Música, and this is one of the most amazing venues. Lots of tapping, a lot of vocals that are frankly quite unusual, and overall, a greater understanding of Spain.

Local Markets in Barcelona

So if you watch pretty much any travel guide to Barcelona, they’re going to tell you to go to La Boqueria and that is the traditional market. Basically picture an old-school European building with tons of different stalls full of food. But it’s not that you shouldn’t go, it’s just that we’re just kind of wanting food. We want to cut down our cost while here in Barcelona this next week, and when every single meal is averaging around $50 for the two of us, it definitely would be nice to eat at home. So we’ve come to what locals will tell you is the better option: finding your local market. Because there’s a few major ones in Barcelona. So today, we’re here at a bit of a no-name market to find some very delicious food. This is where the local Barcelonan, I don’t know if that’s how you would say it, but local Barcelonan would shop. I tried the cherries. Good. Alright, we’re going to be eating good.

Beach Town of Garraf

Now this is a little hidden gem, but it’s my personal favorite chef and restaurant in all of Barcelona: it’s Ruby’s. And today, we took a little road trip, a little outing to get outside of Barcelona and into the beautiful Beach Town of Garraf. This area is where a lot of the famous footballers live up in the mountains in their hideaways, their villas, and it’s a much more chilled pace here. Tiny little beachfront restaurants and beaches.

Final Tips and Hidden Gems

Now, while this guide sets you up for just about everything you can know as a traveler, the missing piece here is going to be nightlife. And right now, I’m actually standing right in front of Barceloneta. Those venues right there, those are some of the biggest nightclubs in the world right behind me there, and Barcelona comes to life at night. It’s not something we’re going to be able to get into in this one, but if that’s what you’re after, you’re in the right city. There’s a lot to do and this city doesn’t sleep.

Listen, when you travel as a couple, you make compromises. I know the thing I compromise is I end up standing in lines for desserts with Ruby. But that’s a line. This is no hidden gem, but we’re on a tear here to see who has the best cheesecake in all of the land. And we’ve had a lot of great cheesecakes, so we got one last rival and then I can conclude the best cheesecake in Barcelona. Look, when I have to wait 40 minutes for a piece of cheesecake and there’s no seating, you better believe the expectations are up here. This better be the best cheesecake, otherwise, I’m about to wreck John Cake’s life. Oh my gosh, I think the other cheesecakes we’ve had are way better. Sometimes the Instagram trends lead you astray, but you know who would never lead me down the dark, dark road of disappointment? He said this was the best on the menu. We got pork cheek with carrot. He wasn’t lying either. That is so tender. This is why you come. Taste buds were exploding, Ruby’s eyebrows were dancing. This was a