ONE DAY in Barcelona Spain! Top Attractions + First Impressions

Good morning and welcome to a new city and country for us. We are in Barcelona, the sun has not even risen yet, and we are really looking forward to seeing how this city compares to some of the other European cities that we have been to. So stick around for this video as we get our first impressions of Barcelona. Okay, first stop of the day though, we have to get our workout in like usual. We got about a 30-minute walk. Meg's got her bar as usual. She's got to get some food in her stomach, but let's go get our workout in. What a great session here at CrossFit BCN. Reebok CrossFit BCN. Meg, what'd you think? I thought it was great. First workout back in like three weeks. Whoa, I'm looking hot. Yeah, first workout back in like three weeks in a formal gym. Felt terrible but also felt great at the same time, if you know what I mean. Great way to start off the day. Now it's time to get some breakfast because we gotta feed our bodies, get some protein in us. With that being said, I'm really curious to see what the breakfast culture is like here in Spain because from walking around this morning, judging by the little shops that we saw, it reminds me of Italy except less chaotic. Lots of pastries and things like that, so we'll see what we can find. The palm trees are like not what I expected. Is that weird? So get one of the chocolate, yeah, yeah, yeah, just one, yes. All right, so here's what we got for breakfast. We got like a little toast thing with cheese and a little bit of meat. Looks like there's some meat in the center as well. Got some pastries and then Meg got a cappuccino, all for 12 euro. That seems reasonable, pretty affordable. Wow, Barcelona is beautiful so far. Look at, look at that ferris wheel, ocean. Palm trees make more sense now because we're by the ocean. Before they didn't make much sense. It is a gorgeous day out here. It's gonna be a great day. The focus here today is hopefully just to show how accessible the city is and you don't maybe need to plan a ton of excursions. Okay, our first stop is a market in Barcelona. I think it's called, or I'm gonna do my best, Market de la Boqueria, maybe? Boqueria? Sure, it's beautiful. Let's go. Okay, this market is mind-blowing. Hopefully my camera's capturing this. Everything here looks so tasty. So you're wondering if this stuff is fresh? This guy's still moving. That guy's literally still moving. Stuff is fresh. I went with the fruit cup. To be honest with you, they all look amazing, but I chose this one simply because of this mini fork. That was how I decided this was the best one, because they all look amazing. I have a feeling that we will be back at that market today. That place is great for if you want fresh meats, fresh fish. It was so fresh. Fruits, nuts, dried fruits. Even if you want meals like sandwiches and wraps and stuff like that, they got it. That place is amazing. Okay, after walking around just for a little bit, I can probably bet that we're gonna be spending most of our time on, I believe it's called, Las Rambles, which actually is a culmination of five different boulevards. And that's where you're gonna find most of the tourist attraction shops and things like that. All right, behind me here is one of the more popular pieces of architecture here in Barcelona. It's one of Antony Gaudi's pieces, which you'll see a lot of his pieces in Barcelona. But it's this cool kind of like weird mosaic architecture house. Okay, so another fun fact we found out is that the mosaic tile work on the outside of the building is all from recycled materials. I'm guessing glass, but sometimes that's made of porcelain or things like that, but it's very beautiful. So speaking of architecture, Barcelona is known for its architecture. So I would highly recommend spending some time walking around just looking at the buildings because every building is so, honestly, I don't really have words for it. It's just amazing. And right now we are on our way to probably one of the most well-known, maybe even the most well-known piece of architecture in the world. Let's go. We have made it to La Sagrada Familia. The architect designed this interior as if it were a huge forest. Nature is an essential influence of the work of Gaudi, so much so that he came to consider it his true master. Notice the columns surrounding you. They look like trees, don't they? Above, they spread out like branches reaching up to the ceiling. This structure is not merely aesthetic, for the branches are actually supporting the vaulted ceiling. The solution allows the building to reach a great height without the need for the exterior reinforcements characteristic of medieval cathedrals. The combination of aesthetics and efficiency is a defining element of Gaudi's work. All right, Meg, what did you think of the Sagrada Familia? There's a lot of aspects about it that I really, really love. I think it's really cool that all the sculpture, like piece of the architecture is outside. They said that so when you're inside, you can be really present and not distracted, which is really cool. Yeah, honestly, I feel like this is a must-see thing. It is very, very inspiring. Gaudi did an amazing job, and I could spew a ton of facts. Just for some context, we paid $36 a person to get in, and that comes with a great, great audio tour, so I would highly recommend coming here. Fun little anecdote, while we were in Nepal, we met a couple from Finland, and they said they didn't come here because it was under construction. They were young at the time, but I think that's really funny. I think that's really funny because it's been under construction for a hundred years, so you better come even though it's under construction because it will still be under construction for a very long time. Anyway, that was an epic experience. So many things learned. Let's move on, and we're back. Marquette La Bocchiera. We couldn't stay away. Ham, cheese, tomato. Oh, yes, please. One, two, three, four. This is like some chorizo and potato wrapped thing. Tastes very good. All right, we got another street food item. This looks like kind of like a fried. Reminds me of something we had in Italy. It's like a fried ham and cheese thing. Let's give it a try. Oh, my gosh. It's much softer than I was expecting and wholly cheesy. So much cheese. That's all cheese. Okay, after further bites, further inspection, this right here, that's actually just a really doughy dough. This yellow stuff, that's the cheese and ham. I think this is the croquette, which is like traditional street food in Spain. It's like a cheese curd. Maybe that was cheese in your thing. It's like cheese and potato almost. Try it. Oh, that's exactly what I wanted. Oh, that's so good. This looks like caramel. Two? All right, the goal was to finish with something sweet, and I believe we did that. It was not hard to find in that place. We got some chocolate, some different flavors of chocolate covered almonds. Seriously, there's desserts everywhere in there. It's crazy. Coconut to almond ratio. Almonds tiny in there. Also, just for your information, we probably spent about 20 euro there for all that food. It's not super cheap, like not what we're used to in Asia, but that's an unfair comparison, but still very affordable. Okay, I heard some stats somewhere or a fact, so somebody can fact check me on this, but apparently there's a FC Barcelona museum, and there's 55 other museums in Barcelona, and the FC Barcelona museum is the most visited one in the city. A football team museum is the most visited. That's how you know they take their football super seriously here. Funny little anecdote that just happened. So, we're in the store looking at different things, and on some of the scarves, it says B-A-C-A. No, B-A-R-C-A, and I was like, oh, what does B-A-R-C-A mean? And the worker goes, it's B-A-R-C-A, and I'm like, oh my gosh. What do you mean it's not B-A-R-C-A-L-O-N-A? What do you mean it's not B-A-R-C-A-L-O-N-A? Barcelona, what? Come on, Ian. I have no idea why my head went to B-A-R-C-A. It's a very obvious progression, but I read it as B-A-R-C-A. All right, after a short little break, giving the legs a little break from walking, we are back out for the night. Also, we had to go back and rest because we have to practice shifting our internal clock back a little bit because everyone here stays up so late and eats so late. Most people don't start eating dinner until 7.30, 8 o'clock at night. That is not something we're used to. Me and Meg, walking around all day today, have been singing that Ed Sheeran song in our head. Barcelona. You know that song? I can't play it because YouTube copyright, but you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't listened to it, you should go listen to Ed Sheeran's Barcelona. It's on the Divide album. Meg knows. I just know. Good morning. We got some breakfast and now we are out exploring again. Thought I would give you some of the impressions that I've had of Barcelona thus far. Here's some things I've really liked. First one, I've already talked about. The accessibility for walking and biking in the city is crazy. These sidewalks are super wide. Look at this sidewalk we're walking on right now. It's huge. Their bike lanes seem super safe and they're everywhere, which I really appreciate. Another thing is that you can really tell, like I said yesterday, that they take pride in their architecture and how the city is built. First of all, everything is really cool to look at. Even this building, I don't even know what this is. Look at it. It's beautiful. It also seems very well taken care of. They really take a lot of pride in keeping things clean. The streets are really clean. Everything seems to be really clean, which is very refreshing when you're exploring a city. Right now, we're actually walking to the metro station, which we have all of our stuff because we are changing cities, which is exciting. But anyway, I wanted to touch base. Though we have been walking basically everywhere here in Barcelona, they supposedly have a very well-used metro station. That went pretty smooth. Not bad at all. We paid about €4 for both of us for a single ticket, but I'm sure you could probably get that cost down if you buy like a three-day or a week pass. But it was clean. It was super user-friendly and easy to use. So, if you're not a fan of walking, the metro is a great option in Barcelona. We're waiting here for our train. We're headed to Valencia. It's about a three and a half hour train ride. All right, we made it to Valencia. That's going to be it for Barcelona. Meg, any last thoughts on Barcelona? All I can say is it got me really excited to see more of Spain. Yes, we are super excited. Hopefully, you guys enjoyed our first impressions of Barcelona and maybe picked up some things you want to do for your own trip to Barcelona. But that's going to be it for today. We will see you in the next adventure. Does anyone know what that was that I just filmed? Tongue. Do you see how big that was? It was so big.