For our first trip of the year, we decided to go to Barcelona for a chilled weekend. Barcelona is always great, and it was just what we wanted!

On our first day we hit the city centre to check out some highlights. We started at la Rambla and Barrio Gotico, then made our way to Barcelona Cathedral. We stopped for lunch of delicious vegan burgers and beers at Cat Bar, which is great (service was okay) – lunch for two including beers and tip for 25€.

We wandered around and ended up at culture centre El Born, an amazing market where you can see ruins of old Barcelona.

In the evening we reached Barceloneta, where we watched surfers brave the cold as the sun set. We stopped for drinks at Bar Celoneta, a vegan sangria bar that served delicious food (and definitely the best sangria I’ve had, although I’m no expert!) – tapas and a pitcher of sangria for two for 40€ including tip.

We woke up to blue skies, so on our second day we headed to Park Guell for outdoor fun. It was a beautiful day, so we took lots of photos. We only visited the free areas, but you can also pay 8€ to access an area of the park where most of the Gaudi sculptures are.

We then headed to El Bosc de les Fades, which is an old favourite. This whimsical bar looks like a little forest, and it’s an amazing place to get a drink after a few hours of exploring the city (two drinks for 6.50€).

The Picasso museum is free on Sundays, so we headed in that direction – on arrival the queue discouraged us, so we instead we went to Ale&Hop, a veggie bar with a great selection of local beers (tapas and beers for two for 22€). This bar is in a great area, so we spent some time just wandering around.

And then it was back to out flat for a quiet evening before our early flight back to London!

HOW TO DO IT:

• Stay: We chose an Airbnb flat a bit further from the centre, which is always a good way of saving money. There’s lots of options in Barcelona and prices are generally good.
• Transportation: The metro is the best way to travel. You can buy 10 single tickets for less than 10€, which is nice and easy. You can also get the metro from the airport to the city centre (tickets cost 4.50€), which is very convenient.
• Money: With the current exchange rate between the pound and the euro we weren’t sure how expensive things were going to be, but Barcelona is still definitely cheaper than London. We also found that there are lots of budget options for food and drink.