I'm off to Barcelona shortly and returning to Tampa via the Atlantic.
Booked a hotel near the city center and plan on doing some walking tours (don't plan on getting a car), and getting around by metro and taxi. I only started looking at what to do yesterday and came across free, guided walking tours, where you're just supposed to tip the guide, I guess. Strange business model. I guess the "catch" is that the guides aren't certified. I thought maybe they'd take you to places, get you to spend money, and take kickbacks. Anyway, I may or may not go on any of those. We have 5 days before boarding the ship.
A couple of certified guides we used in Barcelona really complained about the uncertified guides following them and listening in on their presentations.
We really enjoyed the All Things Dali tour from Spanish Trails - this goes to locations outside Barcelona. The Scottish guide Andrew was fantastic. It was a long, adventurous day. This is not an inexpensive tour company. We did another tour with them - an insider tour - which I didn't enjoy nearly as much even though it was a good overview of the city.
Another thing we totally enjoyed was the Barcelona Cooking School. We took the Saturday night classic tapas class, and the chef Juan was fantastic. Their setup is great for up to 8 people and very organized. They offer other classes too.
Barcelona is a bit nuts in that the demand for major sights is so high, they schedule very tight windows for visits and you have to arrive on time or lose your place. You usually have to schedule a few days in advance to get a time slot you want.
To see the inside of Sagrada Familia we ended up going with a local company company that did small English tours -
Sagrada Familia Walking Tour It was too confusing dealing with the direct website and finding OK time slots. The local travel agency guided tour was very good.
You can see a lot in Barcelona. This site actually helped me get the best price for various visits. Just one of the pages - but links to the suggestion we used above.
https://www.barcelonahacks.com/sagrada-familia-tickets-and-information/
We also did the day trip to Montserrat which was great. Barcelona Turisme sells all inclusive tickets to this (metro, train, cable car or funicular, access to various things on the mountain).
Go by Vinitus for fantastic seafood Tapas - not far up Passeig Gracia from Placa Catalunya and then east one block (I think). I wish we had eaten there two more times (we went twice). Between 2:30 and 6 may be best for getting a table. We hit them about 2:30pm to 3 and they seemed to be not quite as crowded - the lunch crowd finally thinning out. Really excellent fresh seafood.
We visited the Boqueria market first thing in the morning (which means 8am) and had breakfast there and wandered through all the stalls as people were setting them up for the day. That was cool.
