Hi friends! We're back, rested, relaxed, and a little sun kissed, too. Our first trip as a family of five is in the books and I feel like Barcelona was a great European city to start off our adventures. I've always wanted to visit Barcelona and heard such great things about it. It did not disappoint, but, if I'm being totally honest, I wasn't blown away either. I'll get into that more when I put together some follow up posts, like what to pack for a European vacation and what to do when you're in Barcelona. For now, I'm going to highlight our family moments, a lot with pictures, and share more about some of our favorite things we did while we were there.
For starters, the boys did amazing on the flight. We always take an overnight flight if we're traveling to Europe and the hope is that everyone will sleep on the plane. Thankfully it all worked out and we had three sleeping boys and two parents on the six hour flight. We're really lucky to live closer to a flight pattern that gets us to Europe in just as much time as it would take us to get to California. I like to think it's the best of both worlds.
I shared a good amount of things on my insta stories while we were away, because for me, it's just easier than editing pics, coming up with captions, and taking a lot of time to respond to comments and things on my main instagram feed. I usually wait to post all of that until after we're home and when I have more time to get lost in social media. I like to disconnect as much as I can when we're away, and I mean, is instagram really ever instant anymore?
With the things that I did share, a lot of you messaged me asking how was it packing for all of us and how do we get around a city with three little ones all five and under. Well my friends, here it is. We use our Britax double stroller that also clicks in the baby's car seat, and we have a stroller board that goes onto the back. It's been on many vacations with us but this was the first time with all three boys. It made things so much easier and I also love having the storage underneath to throw things in. It fit through all of the doorways just fine and we got soooo many stares and looks and people tapping each other to take a look as we navigated our way around. It was pretty funny to see the reactions as we passed by. We saw two other double strollers while we were out and have to assume they were also tourists.
One of the things we focus on when we know we are traveling with the boys is going off of their needs. Barcelona has some great park areas that we stopped off many times to let them run around, have some fun, and mingle with other local kids. One of the beautiful things of traveling with little ones is watching them observe and take in the world around them. No matter the language barrier kids always find a way to communicate and have fun together. It's so refreshing to see. We're also the type of family that genuinely goes on vacation to try and relax and enjoy it and not necessarily cross everything off of an itinerary just to say we did it. That's not to say that our way of viewing travel is any better than if you love to sightsee and do it all, it's just what works best for us and what we enjoy.
We had two days of iffy weather but you can't control the weather, right? We made the best of it and did majority of things inside those days. The sun would peak out here and there and then before you knew it the wind would pick up and rain would be coming down. We took advantage of visiting the aquarium, enjoyed dinner and a flamenco show, and visited some indoor markets.
After that weather was out of the way the rest of the trip was sunny and beautiful and just what we needed. If you've been apart of my blogging community or instagram family for all of about five minutes then you know we are big beach lovers. I think what we enjoyed most about Barcelona was that you had the city and the beach all in one spot. Some of the main beaches can get very crowded with tourists but as long as we have sand and water we are happy.
Buttt, of course we had to see if there were any other nearby beaches that we could check out. We came across Montgat and fell in love. I kept saying Montage because me and pronunciation have a funny way with each other (I pretty much just say whatever pops into my mind), but Eric kindly reminded me that it was Montgat. There are several beaches here but a small one tucked away with some great rock formations held our hearts that we decided to make that our beach for the rest of the trip. The boys loved playing in the sand and baby C got to put his toes in the water for the first time. It was such a special little moment with him.
Can you believe it's going to be mine and Eric's 9 year anniversary next week? I know, me either! So while we were away we wanted to do something special to celebrate and booked a private lunch at a local vineyard. You guys, it ended up being the highlight of our trip. It was nothing short of perfection. I think I'm going to do a dedicated post for it because it was seriously that amazing. If you ask the boys their favorite part of the trip, they would say it was seeing the lizards run through the vines, so it was a win for all of us.
You can't go to Spain without indulging in all of the yummy food. The tapas were amazing and we could not get enough of them. The paella was also delicious and all of the yummy meats and cheeses were mouth watering. If you remember when we went to Italy last year, little nugget ate his way through the trip. Well, this trip was no different. All this little boy wanted was fresh octopus and seafood and he gobbled it up once it came. The funny thing is, since gelato was such a big thing in Italy now they think anytime we go to Europe it's all about the gelato. It was a good thing there were plenty of places to find it here as well because those boys are gelato hooked.
We did do a few touristy things while we were there like visiting the Park Guell, caught a glimpse of the la Sagrafa Familia, and strolled the streets to explore more.
We also visited the Parc de la Ciutadella (Ciutadella Park) and had a really fun family afternoon people watching and seeing how the locals interacted. The boys were trying to catch pigeons (again) and feed the ducks, both of which they actually ended up touching. Ughh! Good thing I walk around with hand sanitizer. We rented a boat and had the best time rowing around together. Ok, maybe Eric did all of the work but I did help, a bit. Of course the boys wanted to try and lure the ducks into our boat but we managed to avoid that and told them they could feed them again after.
I always love seeing cities that have palm trees because that's something that you don't see around here. I also love how there are so many things you can just walk to and each corner you round has something new to see.
The rest of our time we enjoyed making memories with each other, taking in all of the sights, and being so thankful we have the opportunity to travel with our boys.
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