Category: Spain

My Final Weekend in Barcelona- an ideal 1-2 day itinerary

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If you just have just a weekend in Barcelona here is what you should do.

First start off the morning, grabbing a coffee or breakfast at a café. Honest greens is a great affordable, excellent breakfast/brunch spot. It is like the Sweet Greens of Spain except 100x better. Another one of my favorite brunch places is called Lady Babka. In general you can walk on any street and find a local coffee spot. Or an amazing brunch place. I usually like looking on maps to plan where I want to eat. But there are SO many restaurants in Barcelona, that you’re probably better off just walking by a place and deciding to go in. Everything is made so well and is so good.

Next, I would walk or take the metro to Placa Espanya. Here you can go into a mall, which was once the old bull fighting ring. Take all the escalators to the top. And have a gorgeous free 360° view of the city.

Then from there, you can walk right up to the national Catalonian art Museum. If you go after 3pm on Saturday’s it’s free. You can either explore here or walk around the hills and garden. There are so many free beautiful gardens to walk around, picnic, read or chill. You can even walk into the Olympic soccer stadium for free during the day, where Barca plays.

There is also a really stunning and impressive cactus garden about a 15 min walk from the museum. So plenty to see and do just on the hills on Montjuïc itself. There is usually a street musician and street artist up there too. When I was walking around there was this really talented African duo. They were so sweet and we stopped and cheered them in since no one was stopping. We learned a bit about them, and they asked us how we liked Barcelona. We said we loved it, and they said they’ll make a song for us. They sang this beautiful song about “saying hello to Barcelona” which made me so bittersweet because it was my last weekend there.

If gardens and walking aren’t really your things you can take a gondola ride around the mountain. Or a cable car over the ocean to the boardwalk!

Now you’ve done a lot of walking. Time for tapas. Best time of the day. go to TAPS bar. My favorite tapas place in Barcelona. Nestled in an outer neighborhood 5 minutes away from the museum. This is the ideal spot. Here is the best valued and priced tapas. And don’t forget the sangria. I recommend all the classics, tortilla de patata, croquettes, pan con tomate (or Catalan toast), jalapeños, Spanish style sausages, etc…

Next time to catch the sunset at the beach or head up to Tibidabo for sunset. Tibidabo is a cathedral and theme park at the top of the hills surrounding Barcelona. Make sure to leave 45-55 minutes for this. You’ll take the metro then a cable car, then a bus. But it is so worth it. The hills are stunning and the 360° views of Barcelona are unbeatable.

After this if you want to grab a light bite or take a nap, you have plenty of time to do so and still go out for the night! Most clubs don’t open till 12 or 1. So you don’t want to get there till 1 or 1:30 am anyways. If going out isn’t your thing, you can go get dinner or quickly stop in a Kepab shop or street food spot.

Walking around Barcelona at night is fun because all the locals and crowds are out, as Spaniards are inherently night people. Which is an aspect of the culture that I love.

Anyways that’s all for now! Here are some photos of these spots and my day spent doing these bucket list items! This was a perfect last weekend and I actually got to explore some spots I hadn’t seen yet!

Weekend Trips- everything I wish I knew…

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(TRAINS, PLANES, & PLANNING)

When I was a sophomore (and even a freshman) I was already eagerly looking forward to studying abroad. I was always looking at the experiences of people who were studying abroad at that time. Whether it was through TikTok or instagram I started to form my bucket list, travel places, and expectations.

Before studying abroad I knew I wanted to take advantage of my time abroad, and travel every weekend, taking cheap flights and train rides. Exploring, staying in hostels and traveling with friends. Experiencing the (often overly) romanticized budget travel experience. But the truth is that budget traveling is not always so budget anymore. I feel like people on social media are always talking about all the inexpensive travels in Europe, but because of this mass popularity, when I got to Europe, the prices of hostels and flights had definitely gone up.

If you look at ALL your potential options, and book in advance, it is still possible to score those $35-$75 flight deals. But, here’s why I don’t entirely recommend that.

The summer before studying abroad, I spent countless hours mapping out my travels on trains, using Eurail, and trying to roughly plan everything. I knew tourism would still be in PEAK during the end of august-november, so I wanted to make sure I’d be able to travel where I wanted before things got booked. But no one really plans and books all that before getting to their study abroad destination, and realistically I was not going to.

However, I will say some things do book up, especially popular hostels or cheap airbnbs in popular locations. And restaurants too (elsewhere and in your host city too) ! Basically most things that blow up on TikTok.

When I actually got to Florence, most of my travel plans unraveled a little bit. Everyone had different modes of transportation they wanted to take (train, planes, bus, etc) and more importantly, different budgets and interests. Sometimes finding a good group to travel with, or even a friend or two can take some trial and error. Some best friends travel together, and decide to not do that again. But for others it works out (like when my best friend visited me from the US). You just have to put everything on the table and at least try to roughly plan out all your trips!

The key for weekend trips is to find people with similar interests and travel styles as you. For example, will we want to walk everywhere, take taxis, do a guided tour? Will we be going out to eat every night? Or budgeting? Shopping or sightseeing? Etc etc… communication is key to having a stress free, enjoyable time for everyone. Without worrying about accommodating everyone’s expectations.

Here’s why I reccomend going one weekend at a time, and booking one trip at a time:

You may want time off (traveling can get really tiring!)

You can mix up your experiences. It best to mix budget and not-so-budget weekends.

Weather may create a change of plans (be flexible)! When I was in Italy, Austria and other countries flooded. This greatly damaged/stopped modes of transportation, especially trains, for many many weeks!) If I had trains or trips booked, I would have been out of luck.

Booking trips one at a time can help keep your bookings, expenses, and plans straight. Ensuring that everything is booked correctly, dates, times and also making sure you stay in budget.

Now, if you know you are traveling by train, with the Eurail Pass especially, and you know your route in advance. I do recommend to book your seat reservation/plan it as soon as you can!

The high speed train routes between major/popular cities often book up fast. For example Amsterdam to any major city/paris/london/etc… and all high speed trains require you to have a seat reservation with the eurail pass. These little costs can add up. I could do a whole blog post on pros/cons, and other things I wish I knew about Eurail, pass vs other options (I may do for those interested).

Lastly, it is easy to compare experiences to others. But everyone’s situation and program abroad is different. You could be somewhere with little to no DU students, or walk down the street everyday and see at least 3 people you know. The world is a small place! While traveling, I saw some people from DU in the most random, “what are the odds” places. For example, one girl in 1 of 3 customs lines at the London airport. Or another time in a hostel in Amsterdam. That is always a fun aspect of travel and solo traveling. You’re never truly alone.

Something that surprised me, or I wish I knew, is how many people choose to study abroad with their entire friend group/ or best friends. I on the other hand, set out on study abroad to try to meet entirely new people, from different schools/countries. I also went random with my housing. Which ended up coming with its pros and cons. But anyways, sometimes it can take a while to find your people abroad, but it shouldn’t intimidate you from wanting to branch out, and make new friends!

Traveling while abroad is doable (even on a limited budget). But it doesn’t always need to be a big ordeal. It can be something short, yet impactful. Such as a day trip, or a couple hour long trip to another city in your host country. Just get out there, find what’s best for you, but also and don’t be afraid to branch out, and explore on your own either!