A mostly circular trip through the Catalonia region of Spain (NE Spain). The coastal area was avoided as it was winter and we aren’t beach people. There are 4 regions of Catalonia, Barcelona, Lleida, Girona, and Tarragona. There are cities with the same name as the region but you could be hours away from the named city and still be in the region.
Getting to Spain
A direct flight from New York (JFK) to Barcelona is very cheap in late January – early February as it is the low season. Although we booked through Iberia, the actual flights were from Level Air (a discount airline) and American airlines. We probably should have booked through American as the online checkin through Iberia didn’t really work.
Activities and Lodging
We stayed at both hotels and apartments booked through Bookings.com and AirBnB. All were great and most were booked hours before we arrived at each location. Every site, hotel, and restaurant is listed here on TripAdvisor. Lodging was reasonable around 100-150 euros per night.
Day 1-3 – Arrive at Barcelona airport and drive 1 hour to Girona. Parking was free but outside the medieval area. Girona is a very intact medieval city and we ended up deciding to stay another day twice. We were in 3 different 500+ year old apartments near the cathedral that were wonderful but cool as can be expected. Key activity is wandering the narrow streets. Many locations in the city appear in the Game of Thrones series. The cathedral, Arab Baths (3 euros), walking the city walls, art museum, and the bridges over the river are key sites.
Day 4 – Drive about 45 minutes to the Dali Theatre Museum in Figueres. Dali spent the last years of his life rebuilding a theatre into a museum for new works that are both odd and fun. Then drive 30 minutes to Besalu which is a smaller intact medieval city with a picturesque bridge to the city.
Day 5 – Drive into the Pyrenees mountains toward Puigcerda. The mountains are high (up to 11,000 feet) and popular for skiing. The GPS will offer you a choice of driving back roads or the highway. We took backroads that are only wide enough for one car but are two way. We were fortunate not to encounter snow on the roads are they require snow tires and are closed when the snow if too heavy. Overnight in a cute (surprise medieval) town of Ger (400 people).
Day 6 – Drive for about 3 hours out of the Pyrenees using the highway and tunnels to Lledia. On the way we stop sites that we just see off the road like Montfalcó Murallat. Our hotel in Lleida is a former convent. Lleida has many shops and cafes open unlike all the places we have been previously.
Day 7 – After taking an elevator to the Lleida castle/former cathedral (La Seu Vella) we drive about 2 hours to Barcelona. We skip stopping at the major site along the way Montserrat as we can see it from the car.
Day 8-10 – We had found a hotel on La Rambla with a parking garage. Driving in Barcelona isn’t fun so we were happy not to have to worry about the car or getting back to the airport. We had been to Barcelona in 2004 and forgot many things we had seen like the Arc d Triumph. Saglia Familia (29 euros) is also very different as the inside is fully open providing a more amazing experience. Like Girona, spend a lot of time just walking around but see sites like the art museum (free 1st Sunday), cathedral (15 euros), Guadi-designed house Casa Batlló (39 euros not worth it), & Picasso Museum.
What could have been skipped? Olot, Livia, Sallent – basically nothing open and sites of interest not marked. Casa Batlló in Barcelona was not worth the high admission cost and was gimmicky.
Video
38 minutes with a map at the end.
Tools
Booking.com – convenient way to find and book hotels and apartments
AirBnB – 2 places
TripAdvisor – attractions, reviews, tag places visited and want to visit
Airalo – local cellular service 10Gb for $10. We have Mint Mobile on iPhone 14s that made adding a eSim easy. Texting and iMessage didn’t work great but the internet data was great. Airalo seemed to have a better carrier than Mint Mobile as we always had service. If we had simply used an international plan with Mint Mobile, it would have been very expensive and rarely worked.
iPhone 14 – video
FinalCut Pro – video editing
