Time for the fifth (and final) post of our trip to France & Spain! I can’t believe I actually managed to post every day this week…but it took me a whole year to finish these, so I guess it evens out 😉

Today I’m sharing the second half of our week in Barcelona!

If you’re interested in checking out the rest of our trip, you can find the posts here:

Provence: Part 1 + Part 2 + Part 3
Barcelona: Part 1 + Part 2 (you are here)

Thanks for reading this week – it’s been fun to have an outlet to share and get to experience our trip again virtually! 🙂

We dedicated a whole day to exploring the district of Montjuïc – it’s humongous and you can easily spend hours walking around! To get there, we walked through the neighborhood of El Poble-Sec, which is gorgeous in its own right with lots of shade and beautiful views. Here’s what we saw on our walk up Carrer de Blasco de Garay:

Montjuïc (“Jewish Mountain”) takes a considerable amount of effort to get to the top if you travel by foot, since it rises over 500 feet above sea level. We already got quite a workout climbing the stairs of El Poble-Sec, so we decided to catch the Montjuïc cable car to get to the top of the mountain. Definitely worth it!

The cable car conveniently spits you out right next to Montjuïc Castle. Although we didn’t go inside, we enjoyed walking the castle grounds, especially along the outer walls overlooking the port. Between the elevation and the sea breeze, it felt a good ten degrees cooler than the city center – such a nice treat on that hot summer day!

If you exit the castle from the southwest side, it leads you into a stunning park with many different walking trails to explore. We let ourselves get a little lost and found some gems along the way!

The park runs adjacent to the cemetery – an impressive sight with its mausolea stacked along the mountainside. The cemetery is the largest in Barcelona, covering 57 acres and containing over a million burials.

We found our favorite spot purely by luck: Mirador d’Ocell de Mar. If we ever make it back to Barcelona, I would pack a picnic and spend a whole afternoon here.

Continuing through Montjuïc, we paid a visit to Barcelona’s Olympic Park from the 1992 games.

Many people recommended catching a show at the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc, which is located at the base of the National Art Museum of Catalonia. It’s such a fun way to spend an evening – not just for the fountain show, but to see the thousands of other people who come to watch it with you. It feels like one giant party.

We built up quite an appetite from all that walking, so after the show ended, we headed over to catch a reservation at Casa Lolea in the neighborhood of El Born. Delicious tapas & sangria…10/10 would recommend!

The next day, I spotted a huge Pride parade passing by….so I hopped up and decided to join them!

On our final day in Spain, we decided to take a quick day trip from Barcelona to a town outside of the city called Girona. I absolutely loved it and I’m so glad we went! It’s an easy train ride (about 45 minutes one way) and easily walkable once you arrive.

Our first view of the town…total eye candy with all those brightly colored buildings lining the river!

We spent the first part of our afternoon hiding from the sun and eating lunch at La Fábrica, a quirky cafe for bikers run by a pro cyclist and his wife.

Following the recommendation of the owner, we headed out to walk along the city’s medieval walls (Passeig de la Muralla).

Although the walk is stunning, we quickly realized we were no match for the direct afternoon sun, and we retreated back to the town to grab ice cream and try again later.

Greatest decision EVER, because this was easily the best gelato I’ve had in my entire life. Rocambolesc is the creation of the world-renowned pastry chef Jordi Roca, and it was a happy accident that we found this spot. I would probably return to Girona just for this gelato.

After resisting seconds of gelato, we explored the town a little bit and then headed over to the Eiffel Bridge. Yup, that Eiffel – he built this right before the Eiffel Tower!

After waiting for the sun to go down, we finally ventured back out to the wall walk to give it another try. We enjoyed it ten times more on our second pass 🙂

That wraps up our time in Spain and marks the end of this week of travel blogging! I hope this has been a nice little virtual escape while we’re all stuck at home during the time of COVID. It’s been so much fun sharing these images with you! 🙂

If you’re interested in checking out the rest of our trip, you can find the posts here:

Provence: Part 1 + Part 2 + Part 3
Barcelona: Part 1 + Part 2 (you are here)