I can’t believe it’s already been a year since we got back from our Lisbon and Barcelona trip! This was well before my blogging days, but I wanted to document our travels and share recommendations. This is a pretty long post, so hang in there! I separated travel tips when planning a trip abroad to another post. In this one, I recap how we picked Lisbon and Barcelona, our itineraries/tours/experiences in each, and our favorite restaurants. Let’s go!
How we chose our destinations
We knew we wanted to go somewhere in Europe in February. One of my requests was a walkable city where we wouldn’t feel the need to return when the weather was better. We don’t take these big trips very often, so I wanted to be able to check it off my list this time! I also wanted to escape the Michigan winter and visit somewhere decently warm that time of year.
Hugh spent several years living in Italy for elementary school, so he had traveled around Europe quite a bit. I had only been to Spain in middle school. We wanted to explore a new city together.
I had been following a blogger from Kansas City that moved to Barcelona with her husband, Ali from Gimme Some Oven, and loved their attitude towards absorbing the new culture and their foodie priorities. She also documents weekend getaways they take around Europe, including a trip to Lisbon. Lisbon and Barcelona fit our needs, so we went with those!
Planning the trip
One of my sister’s friends is a travel agent, so we reached out to her to help plan. I knew I could research and plan it out myself, but really wanted to get the most out of the trip we could. I had never planned a week-long vacation before! Definitely don’t regret the decision! Tara was super helpful and found tours that were perfectly our style. She used Avanti Destinations for most of the reservations (air travel, transportation, hotel reservations, and most tours).
Gimme Some Oven’s Barcelona Guide was super helpful in planning out where we wanted to go beyond the scheduled tours. The most helpful sections were Barcelona Culture 101, Tipping, and 5 Ways to Be A Nice Person in Barcelona (which carried over to Lisbon quite well).
Lisbon, Portugal (3 nights/3 days)
Our first stop was Lisbon. Lisbon is a port city on the Atlantic Ocean. They speak Portuguese, but most people spoke English, too. It was a very walkable city with an easy-to-use subway system, too.
We left Detroit Friday evening, made it to the layover in Paris in the morning, and Lisbon by 11:15am Saturday. I decided to go with the car service to get to our hotel so we could get our bearings before taking on the public transportation. We checked in to our hotel then went out to explore!
The next day (our first full day), we had tickets for a hop-on hop-off bus tour. The buses picked up from a park near our hotel and made two big loops around the city. We stayed on for most of the first loop, enjoying seeing more of the city without having to walk. For the second loop, we got off at several places to have lunch and walk around a bit.
Monday was our free day. Just like we had pictured for this trip, we spent the day walking around the city, eating and drinking wine at cute little restaurants throughout. We knew our way around pretty well by then (with the occasional help of Google Maps).
Our hotel and final thoughts
We stayed in the H10 Duque de Loulé, a boutique hotel near Marquês de Pombal. They greeted us with a glass of vinho verde (sparkling wine) and a snack. This hotel had the best most elaborate breakfast spread and was in a great location.
I really loved Lisbon. It’s a pretty good-sized city, but had a smaller feel to it. It reminded me of Kansas City in that way actually. The buildings were beautiful, the people were friendly, and there were tons of great restaurants. We would definitely return to Lisbon and recommend visiting!
Favorite Restaurants in Lisbon
A lot of these were recommended in the Gimme Some Oven’s Lisbon Guide, but we found a couple others, too. I still think about these places a year later!
- Sol e Pesca (this little place serves a huge selection of tinned fish dressed up and super fresh)
- Nova Wine Bar (we loved this little wine bar and actually went back on our last night)
- A Cevicheria (tiny and busy, but has a window that serves drinks and food – get the Pisco sour and ceviche)
- A Ginjinha (oldest ginjinha shop)
- ByTheWine (Hugh saw a bunch of couples getting these giants steaks for two while here the first time, so we had to go back the next day for that)
- Time Out Market
- Honorato (I had this minty green apple vodka drink here that was amazing)
Barcelona, Spain (4 nights, 5 days)
Barcelona is a much bigger city than Lisbon, on the Mediterranean Sea side of the Iberian Peninsula (which is made up of Portugal and Spain). They speak Catalan and Spanish, but, again, most people spoke English well.
What we did
Leaving Lisbon, we felt comfortable enough to get to the airport via subway. We used a small, local airline (TAP Air Portugal) from Lisbon to Barca which reminded me of Spirit – no bags included, small seats, etc. Travel ate up most of the day (especially with the hour time difference. We arrived around 3pm. More confident we’d be able to figure out public transportation this time, we got a shuttle bus that stopped a few train stops away from our hotel. It was quite the walk, but we figured it out!
We had a driving tour around the city the next morning. I liked starting out with this one because it gave a great orientation to Barcelona and shared a lot of history. Our guide spoke English and we covered a lot of ground! I liked that we knew what we were looking at on the skyline for the rest of the week.
That evening we had another tour, this time a “Tapas Walking Tour” by Food and Wine Tours. We got really lucky and no one else signed up for that day, making it a private tour! This three hour tour included walking to several tapas and pintxos (pronounced “peen-chos”) restaurants (sometimes even getting served privately), a few glasses of wine, and exploring one of Barcelona’s busy markets- Mercado de La Boqueria. We learned a lot about the culture and city’s food.
The next day was our free day in Barcelona. Gimme Some Oven’s Barcelona Guide had plenty of suggestions, along with our two tour guides from the day before. We ate and drank and shopped around the city a little bit, also squeezing in some tourist sites. La Sagrada Familia is the #1 most recommended landmark from everyone, so we made sure to hit it. I used their website for tickets. We got the basic ticket for entrance between 5:15-5:30pm for 9 euros each (rather than the 70+ most people pay for all day entrance)! We got to stay a few hours, which was plenty of time to wonder and take it all in.
Our favorite tour was the next day! This “Foodies & Markets” tour (with We Barcelona) was much broader than our other food tour, still focusing on gastronomy, but also looking at the history of the neighborhoods and landmarks. It turned into a private tour again just because no one else showed up! The guide for this one was very very talkative and knowledgable. She tweaked the itinerary based on what we had already seen, too. The tour ended with a bottle of cava (sparkling wine) on the top of the Santa Maria del Pi cathedral with the most incredible 360 degree view of the city and ocean and hills!
We traveled home the next day, flying through JFK this time. We got back to Detroit at 7:30pm and I was glad we had all of Sunday to recover before getting back to work!
Our hotel and final thoughts
Our hotel for Barcelona (K+K Hotel Picasso) was a lot more modern and sleek, but also nice. I loved that it was in EL Born neighborhood because it was pretty central and Ali from Gimme Some Oven lives there, meaning she had extra recommendations for restaurants there!
Even though I would probably pick Lisbon as my favorite, Barcelona was a great city. I loved the narrow streets and lively culture, it was just a little too big of city for me! However, I would definitely return and recommend visiting yourself.
Favorite Restaurants in Barcelona
Gimme Some Oven’s Barcelona Guide is going to give you so many more, detailed recommendations for restaurants, but these were our favorites. We sampled many more places on our tours, but I did not make note (trying to be present and listen to the guides!).
- Bar del Pla (tapas bar in El Born)
- Grasshopper (ramen bar)
- El Xampanyet (another tapas bar)
I highly recommend adding Lisbon and Barcelona to your dream destination list! For help planning the trip, check out my post sharing travel tips I learned in my experience with this one!
Have you ever been to Lisbon or Barcelona?
Did I miss something? Comment below with your stories or recommendations! If you have any questions or want more details, reach out!
