DAY FOUR
What to do and where to eat?
As a special treat, we went to Barcelona’s amusement park, Park Tibidabo (Plaça del Tibidabo, 3-4), high on a mountain overlooking the city. We took a taxi up the mountain to Park Tibidabo, as it was less expensive than tickets for the three-part trip (train, tram, and funicular) up the hill for four people. The view is amazing! Just imagine riding a gaily-colored Ferris wheel on a small mountaintop high over Barcelona. The kids loved the roller coasters and rides. There’s even a kid city, where children can drive electric cars in a mini-urban setting, stopping for traffic lights and learning to stay in their own lanes. Cost: Youth (35 to 42 inches) $11; Adult $32.
KidTripster Tip: In general, school groups and tourists visit the park during the week, so the lines are shorter. On the weekends, families from Barcelona make the trip up the hill, so it can get very crowded. We chose a Friday and enjoyed short lines and plenty of elbow room. Check the park website for opening and closing times during the summer, since they can vary from month to month.
KidTripster Tip: Park Tibidabo has plenty of eateries, serving up your typical amusement park fare with a Spanish twist. Grab a churro with some hot chocolate!
If you’re looking for a day trip, PortAventura World (Av. de l’Alcalde Pere Molas) is an even bigger amusement park with its own water park in Tarragona about an 1-1/2-hour drive south of Barcelona.
DAY FIVE
What to do and where to eat?
For many kids, a trip to the Barcelona wouldn’t be complete without a tour of Camp Nou, the largest stadium in Europe and home to world-class soccer team FC Barcelona. On the recommendation of other families traveling through Spain, we signed up for the experience.
You can sit in the stands, visit the press boxes up high in the stadium, tour the visitors’ locker rooms, kick balls in the interactive exhibits, and spend time at the stadium museum with FC Barcelona trophies and highlights of big games. During our visit, we got lucky; two teams were playing a championship match for a local soccer league in the stadium, so the boys got to watch a real soccer game. Without that, however, the tour wouldn’t have been worth the money for our family; you have to have a deep love of soccer and FC Barcelona, specifically, to really appreciate this tour. Cost: Youth (6-13) $20; Adult $26.
KidTripster Tip: The stadium tries very hard to sell you on family photo packages. At the beginning of the tour, you are herded through a photo area, where professional photographers snap your family picture in various poses in front of a green screen. At the end, they send you through the gauntlet of pink-shirted salespeople to see how your pictures turned out. It’s fun to see the result – your family in various poses in front of the team, on the field, and with the famous Leo Messi himself – but the prices are eye-popping! It cost about $66 for an “album” of six pictures. Our money was much better spent on two soccer balls for the boys that we purchased at a store far from the stadium.
KidTripster Tip: Rather than touring the stadium, it would be more fun for a family of soccer fans to see an actual FC Barcelona game and experience the fervor the home crowd. The La Liga season runs mid-August through mid-May. Granted, all seats in Camp Nou are held by season ticket holders, but it’s possible to get these tickets once they’re released. Click here for more on the process.
One of the highlights of our trip was simply kicking the balls around at a local park. Our game grew and shrank as children from a number of different countries joined in, while their families strolled through the gardens. Their parents were grateful that their kids could work off some energy. our kids learned about sharing their new balls, and the universal language of soccer bridged the gap between cultures.
KidTripster Tip: We bought full-sized balls for the boys, which fit in their small backpacks for carrying in the city and in their suitcases for carrying home; simply deflate if necessary.
The boys’ favorite restaurant in Barcelona was Taller de Tapas (Carrer Comtal, 28) in the Gothic Quarter. They insist that they had the world’s best beef, the world’s best chicken, the world’s best pork, and the world’s best potatoes here. We were all so effusive with our praise that the chef came out to meet us. He invited us to come back on the last night of our trip; he prepared special dishes for the boys and took his picture with us. Now the boys say that he’s the world’s best chef!
