European Vacation with 5 Kids - Barcelona
This summer our family of 7 (5 kids 10 & under) traveled around Europe. We visited 8 countries in a month, and it was an incredible experience! The first stop of our trip was Barcelona, which just so happens to be my favorite stop of the whole trip! We are city people and feel at home when we are in big cities, but we also really love the beach. Barcelona was the perfect balance of both.
Where We Stayed:El Poblenou, walking distance to Bogatell Beach
How Long We Stayed: 6 Nights
Favorite Outing: CosmoCaixa Museum of Science
Favorite Restaurant: Macchina Pasta Bar
What We’d Do Differently: Book tickets in advance to La Sagrada Famila
While we were on the Barcelona leg of our trip, Ron & I both continued to work. It worked fairly well, as we continued to work East Coast hours. This meant that we could roam and explore the city during the mornings (and before the heat really set in!), spend the afternoons at the beach, and then come back and work through the late afternoon/evening. It was admittedly exhausting, but it did work!
Day 1
We took a red-eye flight to Barcelona, and our kids did great on the flight. Most of us slept around 4-5 hours. When we landed it was early afternoon, and we made our way through customs and to the AirBNB. One great thing about most European airports — they usually have separate lines for families, or will pull you from the line. So if you’re traveling with little ones, it greatly minimizes the amount of time spent waiting in lines. Once we got settled in our AirBNB, we roamed the neighborhood a bit, and of course ate our share of gelato and churros!
Day 2
After a rough night of jetlagged sleep, we hit the ground running on our first full day. The best cure for jetlag is getting outside and letting your body soak up some sunshine, so we usually try to jump right into the new timezone. It is very easy to get around Barcelona as their public transportation is very robust. We were staying a little more outside of the city center, so we mostly took buses while we were there. The buses came frequently, and they took ApplePay, making it very seamless to get around.
We spent the morning walking down La Rambla. We started at Placa de Catalunya and worked our way down to the Christopher Columbus statue. In hindsight, we probably should have just taken the train down, because it ended up being a lot of walking that day for the kids, and it was very hot. After roaming the famous street, we headed to the Aquarium de Barcelona. It was small, but the perfect, enjoyable (and air-conditioned) break for the kids. Afterwards, we walked over to the Maritime Museum, which is free on Sunday afternoons!
From there, we hopped in a cab and went to Park Guell. We are all pretty exhausted at this point, but it was the only available time slots left for our week in Barcelona, so we powered through the jetlag and heat. Park Guell is a park filled with beautiful mosaic architecture and is one of Gaudi’s greatest creations. It is situated at the top of a very steep hill, and once you are inside, there are more hills to climb and explore. It is definitely worth seeing, but I would recommend going first thing in the morning before it gets too hot! The architecture is incredible, and from the top, there are also great views of the whole city.
Day 3
Day 3 started in the middle of the night with our youngest throwing up all night long and all morning. Between the jetlag, the heat, and going way too hard on Day 2, his little body just couldn’t handle it. So we adjusted and took this day very slow. We let the kids sleep in and play inside for the morning, and by afternoon we were able to walk over to the beach near our AirBNB. We purposely booked our lodging near the beach, rather than the sites of the city. It helped our afternoon routine go smoothly so we could also squeeze in our work time. The beach was beautiful, and the waters were warm and calm. We blissfully enjoyed the beach every afternoon, but on our 3rd afternoon, we discovered that the Barcelona beaches are teaming with jellyfish. We watched many locals catch them and toss them out, but once we saw them, we couldn’t stop seeing them. There were dozens and dozens, which definitely put a damper on things. We still played in the water some, but my kids were definitely way more hesitant to get in!
Day 4
With everyone back to normal and mostly over the jetlag, we ventured back out. I hadn’t realized until we were in Barcelona that tickets to go inside La Sagrada Familia sell out very fast. Even still, we went to see the outside, and we hoped to catch some of the last minute tickets they release on the same day. Unfortunately, we were not able to get tickets, so we only got to see the outside. It is such a beautiful church and such a prominent part of the city, a must-see for sure!
Next, we made our way over to La Casa dels Entremesos (The Giants House). It is free Tue-Sat mornings, so we decided to check it out. It is full of giant statues that were once used in Catalan festivals. While neat to see, it is incredibly small (only one room), and in my opinion, not worth the visit there.
Our final stop of the morning was to the top of Montjuic. We took a cable car up to the top, which is always a fun thing for kids to do . At the top, there is an old castle to explore, as well as beautiful views of the city.
As usual, we finished our day at the local beach :)
Day 5
We took the morning to do one of my kids’ favorite activities - visiting the zoo! It was a fun outing with lots of fun animals to see. It also had my kids’ favorite Barcelona playground there. Admittedly though, we spent 3 years going to the San Diego Zoo every week, and I don’t think any zoo ever matches up to it! The rest of the day was spent roaming our neighborhood and going to the beach.
Day 6
After several days of exploring the city in the heat, we opted to trek out to the CosmoCaixa Science Museum. It was a bit far from us, and required a bus, a train, and a lot of walking up steep hills and stairs to get there, so I was nervous that it might not be worth it. But I was pleasantly surprised — the science museum ended up being everyone’s favorite thing we did in Barcelona! (Sadly, Ron missed this outing as he was having breakfast with a coworker, and when he finished up, I told him not to trek all the way out there, thinking it likely wasn’t worth the hike there…whoops!)
There were several floors of fun, interactive exhibits, but the highlight for sure was the simulated rain forest. It was so incredible!
Not every moment of vacation with kids will go smoothly. In this leg alone, we had one sick child, one child who had an unexpected allergic reaction to sunscreen, another who broke a plate in the AirBNB and lost their boogie board, and plenty of tantrums. But my attitude is always that these things will happen regardless of where we’re at, so we might as well see the world :)
And that was the end of our Barcelona leg of the trip! it was an amazing week, full of lots memories. We enjoyed the balance of city and beach life and quickly fell into routines we loved. Next stop…Nice!