- 2026-10-17: Calgary to Barcelona
- 2026-10-18: Arrival in Barcelona
- 2026-10-19: Cathedrals and Musica
- 2026-10-20: Busses, Gaudi, and Botanicals
We landed in Barcelona about 15 minutes early. We made our way through passport control. The automated machines didn’t like our passports and we were redirected to talk to a real person. It seemed to be a common problem with the people on our flight. A few minutes later and we were waiting for our bags at the baggage carousel. We waited, and waited, and waited. Everyone from our flight was waiting for our bags to show up. One of our fellow passengers asked the staff at the baggage counter where our bags were and they said they were having staffing issues. It took about an hour for the luggage from our flight to finally show up on the carousel.
After finally received our suitcases, we grabbed a taxi to the apartment we rented in Barcelona. It took a minute for the taxi driver to find the right address, but he managed to find it. We made our way into the building and up to the second last floor. We tried to open the door to the apartment and the door didn’t want to open. We were warned that the door is a little tricky to open. We tried for several minutes before trying to get in touch with the rental agency. The number they provided didn’t seem to work. Darrell tried the door a couple more times and was finally able to get it to cooperate.
The apartment is quite nice. It has a couple of bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a lovely terrace that overlooks Sagrada Familia.
After getting situated in the apartment, we decided to go for a walk to explore the area a bit. We headed towards Sagrada Familia, stopping in a few of the souvenir shops along the way.
We were pretty tired and hungry at this point. We started to head back to our apartment and found a paella restaurant along the way. It was about 6:00pm which is early for dinner in Spain. We were the only two people in the restaurant. Amanda ordered a shellfish paella and Darrell ordered a scallop one. They were both good meals. After eating, we returned to the apartment and got ready for bed. We made it to about 8:00pm before falling asleep.