Barcelona is one of my favorite cities. Besides the food and the beach, it is also home to one of the most famous (and one of my favorite) artists in history: Antoní Gaudi. His presence is sprinkled all throughout the city and I couldn’t help but feel his energy permeating through the streets. This city is truly alive and I can’t recommend it enough for any age, any ability, any travel style. You just can’t go wrong.

The Sites

You’ve heard of La Sagrada Familia but you don’t know the feeling of complete awe until you see it up close and, if you’re lucky, at night.

We caught our first glimpse of this beauty after a whirlwind couple of days in London followed by a late afternoon flight to Barcelona. I don’t know where my mind was at but I probably asked 10 different people how to get to our Airbnb to be sure we weren’t too late to meet our host. We ended up being late anyway because I forgot to think about my phone not working in Spain and we were unable to contact her, but that’s here nor there.

I’d purposely chosen an Airbnb that would be close to La Sagrada but when we got off at our metro stop (appropriately named Sagrada Familia), we weren’t expecting what we saw.

It was something like this but lit up in all its glory at night. I remember looking at my husband and saying, “Wow. Oh my God.”

I could go on and on about La Sagrada Familia but there’s so much more to see during your visit.

In our short time in the city, we also made time to visit Park Güell, Museo Picasso, Gaudi House Museum and other landmarks.

The Food

Everyone knows that you can’t visit Barcelona and not get paella, right? You should also know that just like in any tourist destination, there is tourist food and “the good stuff” and we had both in Barcelona. Our first taste of paella was during our first day and we just wanted to stop anywhere that had paella. One of my favorite professors is from Spain and he made paella for us often so I have an idea of what I should expect from a decent dish and that first dish we had wasn’t it.

Luckily for us, I had already asked that same professor for a restaurant recommendation and he did not disappoint. We caught a bus and followed our handy google maps to this small, hole in the wall restaurant that specialized in squid ink paella, which at first seemed a little daunting, but once we tasted it, we knew that this was exactly what we’d been looking for.

The People

We visited Spain during the midst of my graduate school studies in Spanish language and literature and although I was discouraged from using my Spanish in Barcelona because I was told that everyone speaks Catalán, how could I not at least try. And graciously, everyone was so kind and didn’t switch to English once they heard my accent. Which anyone who speaks more than one language can attest to, it’s nice when you’re able to practice without people switching back to English and making you feel like a fool.

People in Barcelona were so helpful, always pointing us in the right direction with a smile and making time to talk to us. As a tourist for the first time on a big international trip, it eased our nerves to know that we were in a friendly city.

What cities have you visited that left you in awe and you can’t wait to get back to? Tell me in the comments!