I am a planner. I like to know what I’m doing and when. I want to know the best way to do it, what to wear and how to make the most of the time when I visit a place. I’m the one always planning a trip. So my fourth trip to Barcelona for my friend Lucy’s hen do was always going to be a bit different! It was organised by her bride squad through Chilli Sauce – a company that puts together packages for hen and stag parties both Home and away. Our itinerary was jam packed! I felt sad I wouldn’t be able to do any exploring but excited for all the things to do with a group of girls!
The twist came when I slept in the mother of all godawful beds in Kefalonia and well and truly did my back in. So it put paid to any ideas I had of doing ‘bubble football’ on the last day. So with that I took it as fate and started to look through my insta saves for Barcelona (tell me I’m not the only one that does this!?) and started planning a route to some of the places I’ve wanted to visit whilst there. The Palau de la Musica Catalana was my first must do but I wanted to go see Casa Batllo and Casa Mila again too and maybe catch some white anchovies (my fave tapas) as the pre planned meals on our trip had failed me in that department.
So I wandered the streets, popping into places as I went along and snapping views as I went. I found a smaller food market to the eve popular La Boqueria Mercat, and picked up a juicy peach and ate it sitting on some old concrete steps. It was truly blissful. However I had stuffed up, all this wandering meant when I finally finished my tapas and got to the Palau it was 3.04. I queued for what seemed like and age but was in fact 5 mins to then be told the self guided tour entry stopped at 3pm. Yes, really. And that the English guided tour departed at 3pm too. With steak and strip (NOT to be confused with strip steak ) planned in at 7pm with two twenty min taxi rides within that plus 6 girls sharing a shower to get ready I couldn’t wait for the next tour at 4pm (which was also a more expensive extended one with a mini concert- what was the luck in that!?) so the only way to see inside was to take the Catalan speaking tour.
Here layeth the peril of not planning a trip.
if I’d looked it up beforehand I could have found all this out and not missed out- instead there I was sitting in a mini auditorium watching a video all in Catalan. With lots of other people who I can only presume had a clue what was going on! We were then lead through the tour by our Catalan speaking guide so basically I was there for the pretty. And pretty it was to be fair!
It’s actually breathtaking so for the 20€ fee I’d certainly do it again but maybe in English so I understood a little bit more! It was another breathtaking moment, and I’m *glad* to say I made it back in plenty of time to get back out for the Steak and Strip darn it 😂 when did not planning a trip not work out for you, make me feel better won’t you!?
