World School Diaries

We had planned to do two full days in Barcelona on our travels, but condensed this down to one day for a few reasons. Firstly, the weather took a turn to orange level thunderstorms in the area (and we’d had enough negative experiences with storms!) and secondly, the train ride in from our campsite ended up being way longer than we expected.

As we’re in the motorhome, we booked up the closest available campsite we could find. This was Holacamp Barcelona, in Gava, also known as Tres Estrellas. We booked it months ago as the places close to the city centre were booking up quick.

It was not our fave site, in fact it’s probably our worst one yet – especially as we had just left a 5 star resort (and so missed those lovely little touches!) and Holacamp had just had a huge downpour in a storm, so everything was wet and muddy. Our pitch was just above a big puddle, which did not bode well for later that night when a massive thunderstorm rolled in and the flash floods arrived! It was very busy but I would assume that’s because of the location.

As we didn’t have much choice, we accepted what we got and looked forward to Barcelona!

The bus route for the L95 runs into the centre of Barcelona from nearby to the campsite. It was around a 7-8 minute walk to the bus stop from the campsite and we didn’t have to wait long for the L95 to arrive. Notices say you can pay using contactless for a single ticket at the front of the bus, but the bus driver said no. So bring cash if you do use the L95! It was €11.60 for 4 of us one way. We settled in for what should have technically been around a 45 minute bus ride, but with the morning traffic, commuters and all of the various stops, it took us around one hour and 15 minutes! It’s more of a local bus than a tourist bus but be patient and it takes you where you need to go.

The kids were very patient and enjoyed watching the changing climate of the outer and inner city as we got to towards the centre (not loads to look at for the first 30 mins or so), and I’m really grateful that they are the ages they are. For younger children, it would be a very boring ride.

When we got to the University of Barcelona stop, in the centre of the city, we got off and hit up a Starbucks for a much needed coffee! Then we began our first overtly touristy part of our day.

We decided to do the hop on hop off bus tour with Barcelona Bus Turístic and were very glad we did. It’s something we would definitely recommend for families. Although you feel like a real obvious tourist with a capital T on your forehead, you get to see loads of the city, pretty much all the best sites and get your bearings for if you do more exploring later on foot.

We’d paid for the two day pass, which for two different bus routes was €120, as like I said before, we had planned to do two days in Barcelona. For all of us for one day it would’ve been just over €90, so ultimately we didn’t lose much money by over-booking the ticket. But if you’re not sure about doing one or two days, you might want to factor this in. We loaded on to the bus, were given the obligatory headphones and settled into a multicultural tour of the southern parts of Barcelona! There were Americans, English, French, Spanish, German, Canadian, Chinese etc, along with us, so it felt like a real melting pot. Although, you don’t really talk to anyone because you are all busy listening to the pretty constant audio guide.

The audio guide was fantastic and we all learnt so much! It was also fabulous sitting on the top deck and drinking in the sights. It was the kids first time here, but my husband and I have been before so it was great for them to learn a good chunk.

The bus tour lasted for just over two hours and then we arrived at the obligatory famous spot, the Sagrada Família. I was so excited for the kids to see it as we had learnt about Gaudi, but I’m always slightly underwhelmed by the architecture every time I see it. I don’t want to make enemies here, but although I’m amazed by the might of being able to design and build something so large and imposing, his style of architecture is perhaps not my cup of tea. I do prefer his other buildings.

After this, we walked to the Arc de Triomf, had a beer at a little side café, the kids guzzled down some refreshing bubble teas and we wandered towards the Picasso museum. This was my pick because I love art history.

We bought tickets for the next available time slot, checked our bags into the cloakroom (free) and enjoyed the calmness and beauty of the architecture inside the museum. It was only €26 for all of us as children go free. I loved the next hour, mooching around the museum and looking at how Picasso‘s work evolved in the quiet art-strewn walls.

We enjoyed the mediaeval side streets with their artistic and cultural flair as we walked back towards the bus stop. That was probably our favourite area of the city.

Top tips for Barcelona:

• Pick a couple of things that you really want to see and just savour those, you cannot do everything in one day.
• Consider the hop on hop off bus tour as a saving grace. Yes, you will feel like a mega tourist, but you’ll get to see so much in this vast city.
• Bring lots of snacks and drinks.
• A lot of street cafés will only serve you if you also eat food, so maybe order a portion of chips if you really want to sit and have a cold beer by the main sights.
• Get your camera ready, the architecture and the honeycomb style plazas are amazing!
• If we were going to do it again, we would stay in a hotel in the city. The journey in to Barcelona felt so long, we wouldn’t do a big city like this again with our motorhome.
• Save yourself some cash by walking around the atmospheric mediaeval district, rather than paying to see all the big hitters. One tour offered four Sagrada Familia tickets for close to €500! I would much rather spend that on a whole different experience, more suitable to the kids.
• Leave the beach for another location, and stick to the main city.
• Grab a beer! When in Barcelona…. 
• If your kids are artistic, get them to bring a sketchbook and some pencils. There is so much beauty to replicate.
•  Enjoy the street art and graffiti too.
• Watch out for poo on the streets! This isn’t always animal poo! 
• If you want to buy a lot of postcards, you can ask for a deal from some postcard vendors. Towards the end of the day one guy offered us a bundle for a discount, which we gratefully took up.

After a full day in Barcelona, we went back to our campsite, where an orange warning thunderstorm accumulated over the top of our motorhome. We watched in horror as over the next 2 1/2 hours the waters rose almost to the top of our motorhome step. The water was perhaps an inch or two from coming in through the front door! Thank goodness the storm eased off and the rainwater started to recede. Otherwise the flood may have reached our back garage. The big pool of water right by our pitch certainly didn’t help us sleep that night.

Luckily in the morning, everyone seemed dry and flood free, although many of the roads in the campsite were so muddy and turned up we were worried we wouldn’t be able to get off pitch. We waited awhile for the water to recede more and then made our move, luckily getting off okay.

Then we hauled our wet butts away from the Barcelona area, down the east coast of Spain towards Valencia! Although they had had crazy dynamic weather systems here over the past week, the forecast is now 28° and sun. And we could do with a little break from weather anxiety!