Buckle up guys, this is a long one! And it is way overdue. If you know me, (which since you’re here you probably know a little bit about me,) photos are a HUGE part of my life. So be sure that I made time in each place we went in Europe for photos.

DAY ONE + VIEW FROM AIRBNB

We arrived in Barcelona at about 2 o’clock on the first day and man were we TIRED. I had thought that the excitement would have energized me into wanting to get out and explore right away but honestly, I was a bit nervous to step out into this strange new place. It didn’t help that our cab driver couldn’t drop us off in front of our building (there was a dump truck blocking the street) and it left us to try and figure out how to read and figure out the addressing system. On top of that, our host was not waiting outside and I couldn’t get my phone data to work properly. So it was a bit of a confusing and anxiety ridden arrival. All of this made me extra appreciative that I booked a wine and tapas tour for that evening- it was a great intro into the area around us and their food and culture. Oh and we definitely napped in between arriving and heading out for our dinner tour. If you didn’t know, tapas is HUGE in Barcelona. It’s basically really small portions of a variety of food you order to make up a full meal.

We didn’t really take any pictures the first day since we were still settling in and basically just enjoying food and wine. So on to the next day!

DAY TWO
Brunch + Bike Tour

Let me start by saying this day did NOT go perfectly. I had planned this trip so hard and I still got mixed up on which time I scheduled our group bike tour for. Hint: We missed our originally booked time. Luckily, spots opened up on the afternoon one that I thought we had booked. The plus side was that we got to sleep in a little and had time to grab brunch. So the first half of our second day started with brunch and a bike tour throughout Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter. Seriously such a great time! Clearly, these four photos were taken with our phones. It’s a bit complicated to take out my huge DSLR for everything, haha! And plus, I wanted to be present for the experience and not see everything through a screen.

After our bike tour we had a couple hours until we met up with Kelsey and Tom for our couples photo adventure through the Gothic Quarter. BUT guess what? One of our liquids bags (we carried on luggage- no checked bags) got left at home so we had to scour many different stores to replace those products. I’m talking skincare, makeup, shaving cream, etc. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if Europe had stores like Target or CVS, but EVERYTHING is separated there so we spent this break running around to grab eyeliner and other essentials to get ready for our photos. Also, most of the products we came across were foreign brands and were all written in Catalan/Spanish. It was definitely not relaxing like we had hoped it to be, but it all worked out in the end.

Gothic Quarter
For the second half of the day….. we went on a photo adventure with Kelsey and Tom!!! (Who’s photos I blogged a couple weeks ago, here.) Seriously, the photos are a must-see, so if you haven’t seen them, go take a look!!
I also mentioned this in the previous blog post about our photo adventure, but unfortunately it was super cloudy and dim when we went out to take photos. It had been sunny all day.. until we met up with Kelsey for photos. But we made the most of it and still had fun! We also got rained on near the end.. but we didn’t let it deter us (until it did, haha.)

Don’t mind us… just making a scene in the middle of the street..

We never new how awkward it would be to eat gelato while taking photos! How far do you stick your tongue out? How am I supposed to bite this without looking crazy?? Anyways, enjoy these few cute ones haha…

Here comes the rain, starting with a nice trickle..

This is of course the only time throughout the whole trip that we DIDN’T have our rain jackets and umbrella on us…

And that’s a wrap of day two!

DAY THREE / LAST DAY
On our last full day in Barcelona, we visited the freaking amazing Basilica de La Sagrada Familia, explored a little bit of “downtown” Barcelona, and went up to Montserrat.

La Sagrada Familia is so huge, it was impossible to get a good photo of it while we waited for our reserved entry time.

Basilica de La Sagrada Familia
Walking in is just such an incredible sight to behold. There is nothing like this anywhere else, thanks to Gaudi’s eccentric style. Even these photos do not show all of its beauty. Having learned about Gaudi and La Sagrada Familia in my Art History classes made it even crazier to see it in person.

Montserrat

Our last bit of exploring Barcelona

Day Four we got on our cruise to Italy!