Barcelona- Kids Edit

Ah, the age old dilema of what to do with kids on a city break, especially kids with a low tolerence for schlepping around art galleries and admiring architectural delights. (Rafe- I don’t like cities, I wouldn’t call this a ‘break’)

Luckily I had two tricks up my sleeve for this particular city, both in the form of friends who live in, or happened to be visiting Barcelona while we were there. First up, Leon who I lived with in my first year at university, longer ago than I care to remember, and now lives in the leafy area of Valldoreix on the edge of a national park 20 minutes north of central Barcelona by train. Understanding the brief perfectly, we were provided with an astroturf football pitch, a football, two boys keen to play with said football, an outdoor swimming pool and an esky full of beers and juice. Pretty much the perfect afternoon.

The next day, we were delighted to find some Chobham friends were in town for a wedding and had an evening to spare. After cocktails at Nikki and Ian’s roof top bar, we headed down to the beachside area of Barceloneta and Somorrostro beach where the kids (ours, plus Matthew) splashed in the sea, attempted to play volleyball and built sandcastles while we sat and ate tapas and paella with a fabulous view at Agua.

By day, we ticked off a few cultural elements with an open top bus tour (including Camp Nou, a highlight for Rafe), a trip to the Sagrada Familia (‘Big’ – Dessa) a visit to Park Güell -worth visiting, and the kids loved running off and finding little spots to hide in the architecture, but ridiculously busy, even with timed entry tickets. Up Montjuïc (and some watching of the 1992 Olympic diving on youtube to set the scene) and the obligatory evening stroll around the leafy streets of La Rambla.

As in most European cities, one of our favourite and thriftiest finds was the abundance of water fountains in the street to refill our bottles, (remember those folding Vapur water bottles from Jim’s kit list post?)