We've been so I just thought I would update this!
My son was absolutely over the moon on his birthday. First he unwrapped a Barcelona scarf and wondered why I'd bought that, then he noticed a sheet with the weekend itinerary on and nearly fell off the sofa! He couldn't stop grinning for days!
Got a flight out on the Friday morning. I'd bought Hola BCN cards in advance (order these at least a month before you go from the TMB website as they take longer than it says to arrive!) which covered the train journey from the airport into the city centre, then we transferred onto a Metro along to Collblanc. The apartment was just round the corner from the Metro, and on the same street as Camp Nou.
We stayed at the Madanis Apartments and it was perfect! Spotlessly clean and plenty of room. It had a living/dining room, fully equipped kitchen including washing machine, bathroom, three bedrooms and a small balcony with table and chairs. Would have been easy to fully cater main meals if we'd wanted to but we just had breakfast and made sandwiches there.
We did the stadium tour on Friday afternoon and found it really good. You can wander around at your own pace and spend as long as you want in each section. The amount of trophies is astonishing and I enjoyed learning about the history of the club. Thought the photographs they took were expensive though. On the evening we went to see the Magic Fountain which was playing a varied mix of music and we enjoyed that.
Saturday morning was a visit to Sagrada Familia. I was absolutely blown away by the beauty inside. Even if you are not religious it's worth a visit as the architecture is amazing. We had the audio tour which was informative and climbed the nativity tower. There was a small Christmas market over the road, so we had a browse and discovered the Caga Tio. My children really found it amusing to hear that it shits small presents so we had to buy one to bring home!
The match was played on Saturday afternoon and it was a brilliant experience. It was warm and sunny and I found it odd being at the match in December and sitting in my shirt sleeves! Barca won 5-0 and Messi scored twice at our end. My son really wanted to see a Messi goal, so he was really pleased to see two!
After the match we ate at the Cafe de Galiza which is next door to the apartments. We ordered eight hot tapas, four drinks and four desserts and it only came to around £45 which I thought was good value for money. The tapas portions were a decent size and the food was absolutely beautiful. They don't speak a lot of English but we managed to get by with a mixture of their broken English and my attempts at Spanish!
On Sunday we visited the Aquarium and enjoyed that. It was a nice sunny day so we had a lovely walk around the harbour area admiring the boats and then had a stroll up Las Ramblas. Sunderland were playing local rivals Newcastle that day, so we visited Flaherty's Irish bar just off Las Ramblas to watch our match. It was a passionate battle but we won 1-0 thanks to a late goal. That made the weekend even better!
After the match, we had a general wander around the Gothic streets, admired the Cathedral from outside and had a look at the Christmas market. We enjoyed looking at the things that are different to the UK, especially the big and elaborate Nativity scenes and had a giggle at El Caganer! We wandered back to Las Ramblas for churros and chocolate, and then walked back up in the dark admiring all the Christmas lights and the lights at Placa de Catalunya.
Overall it was a brilliant weekend and none of us wanted to go home. Barcelona is a lovely city and the locals are friendly. I never felt unsafe while walking or using the Metro and I didn't see any pickpockets. It's definitely a city I'd like to visit again sometime. Tip: if you can buy admission tickets in advance, it's worth doing so. It's slightly cheaper and we were able to jump queues at the places we visited as just had to scan the tickets I'd printed at home to get in.
Meanwhile our Caga Tio is now part of our Christmas decorations and he's had a lovely time over the festive period randomly shitting small chocolates, much to the amazement of my youngest!
