MULTILINGUAL FAMILY
IN LONDON

In April 2024, we spent a week in Barcelona with our two-year-old daughter.

I had visited the city once before, nearly 18 years earlier, but it was my husband’s first time. The main purpose of the trip was to visit my brother-in-law and his family, who live in Barcelona, so this was never intended to be a sightseeing-heavy holiday.

We arrived with very little itinerary and usually planned only one or two things each day, leaving plenty of room for long lunches, playground stops and spontaneous detours.

Day 1: London to Barcelona

We flew from London Stansted to Barcelona. Living in North London, we often use Stansted when travelling to Europe and usually end up flying with Ryanair.

I used to be firmly in the “Ryanair is terrible” camp and would choose other airlines such as easyJet whenever possible. However, since moving to North London, I have developed an unexpected appreciation for the airline.

I have no idea whether this is down to Ryanair itself, the airports we use, or simply good fortune, but our luggage always seems to appear remarkably quickly. Nine times out of ten, by the time we have cleared passport control and reached the baggage carousel, our suitcases are already there waiting for us. As anyone travelling with a toddler will know, every minute spent standing around a baggage belt feels about three times longer than it actually is.

As we had a morning flight, our daughter slept for more than half of the 2.5 hour journey, which made travelling considerably easier.

We stayed in an apartment near Maria Cristina metro station, which was available through my father-in-law’s work. It was not in the heart of the tourist area, but the transport links were excellent, and having a large El Corte Inglés nearby was useful. Although we had not chosen the location ourselves, it proved practical for getting around the city.

Our first evening was mostly spent catching up with my in-laws. After a simple dinner nearby, we called it a night.

Day 2: Berceloneta and Sant Sebastià Beach

The temperature suddenly jumped on our second day, so we decided to spend it by the sea.

After a quick breakfast at a café near our apartment, we took the metro to San Sebastià Beach with my in-laws.

While buying our tickets at the metro station, a middle-aged woman struck up a conversation with us. Barcelona has a reputation for pickpockets, so I will admit my guard immediately went up, especially when she mentioned she was heading in the same direction and joined us for the journey.

As it turned out, she was simply an exceptionally friendly grandmother. During the metro ride, she proudly showed us photos of her children and grandchildren and chatted happily the entire time. Some things, it seems, are universal. Grandmothers are the same everywhere!

Being a sunny Sunday, the beach was fairly busy. The sea was still a little too cold for swimming, but that did not stop plenty of people from sunbathing.

We found a seafront bar overlooking the beach and ordered a selection of tapas while our daughter played in the sand nearby. Between the food, the sea air and the endless entertainment of a sandy beach, several hours disappeared quickly.

After two or three hours, we headed back towards the apartment. The walk from the beach to the nearest metro station is only about 20 minutes, but under the Mediterranean sun it felt much longer.

Back in our neighbourhood, we had dinner close to the apartment before turning in for the night. After a day spent outdoors, everyone slept exceptionally well.

Day 3: Plaça de Catalunya, La Rambla and the Gothic Quarter

On our third day, we decided to venture into central Barcelona and visit some of the city’s most famous sights, including La Rambla and La Boqueria Market.

We took the metro to Plaça de Catalunya, Barcelona’s largest and most famous square.

And then came a genuine surprise.

The square was absolutely covered in pigeons. Hundreds of them.

Apparently this is one of the things Plaça de Catalunya is known for, but I had managed to arrive completely unaware of this fact.

For our daughter, this was nothing short of paradise.

She had always been fascinated by birds and immediately took off after the pigeons, squealing with delight as they scattered in every direction. As a Korean who grew up hearing endless warnings about pigeons being flying disease carriers, I found the whole scene mildly horrifying. At the same time, watching her enjoy herself so completely was genuinely hilarious.

Eventually, we managed to persuade her to leave the pigeons behind and continue towards our next destination: Boqueria Market (Mercat de la Boqueria).

The market is located just off La Rambla, Barcelona’s famous pedestrian boulevard, a short walk from Plaça de Catalunya. It was supposed to take around 8 minutes to get to the market, but travelling with a two-year-old has its own sense of time. Between stopping every few metres to inspect something interesting, watching street performers and offering opinions on absolutely everything, the walk probably took us half an hour.

Everyone says Barcelona is crowded year-round, and they were not exaggerating. Despite it being a Monday, the city centre was packed with tourists. We spent much of the day alternating between sightseeing and preventing our daughter from disappearing in whichever direction looked most exciting.

At the market, we bought fried calamari from a takeaway stall and ate it while wandering through the city, which felt like a very appropriate Barcelona lunch.

While she napped later that afternoon, we took the opportunity to enjoy an iced coffee at a nearby café and explore Casa de l’Ardiaca, a beautiful 16th-century building in the Gothic Quarter. It was one of those rare parenting travel moments when a sleeping toddler suddenly transforms sightseeing into a peaceful experience.

We also stopped to admire Barcelona Cathedral from the outside, which sits just across the square from Casa de l’Ardiaca.

Back at the apartment, we rested for a while before heading out for dinner. One thing we found challenging in Barcelona, and in Spain in general, was the timing of evening meals. Many restaurants did not start serving dinner until around 8pm, which does not necessarily align well with the schedule of a tired two-year-old.

In major cities such as Barcelona and Madrid, there are certainly places that cater to tourists and open earlier, but the options are still more limited. Back in London, we would normally eat dinner around 6pm. If we gave our daughter a snack to tide her over, she often had little interest in eating a proper meal later. On the other hand, keeping a hungry and increasingly tired toddler entertained in a restaurant until Spanish dinner time was not straightforward either.

We travelled everywhere with colouring books, sticker activities and various other distractions, but there were evenings when none of them worked particularly well. I admit we ended up relying on videos and animations more than we normally would have liked.

Day 4: City Tour Bus

On our fourth day, we decided to see more of the city using one of Barcelona’s hop-on hop-off sightseeing buses.

At around £25 per adult, the tickets were not exactly cheap, but children under 4 travelled free. The buses operate several routes around the city, allowing passengers to hop on and off as often as they like. Rather than targeting specific attractions, however, we decided to simply ride the Blue Route from start to finish and get a general feel for the city.

Our daughter was immediately delighted by the open-top upper deck. There were many excited “wow”s as we rolled past Barcelona’s landmarks and neighbourhoods. I had grand plans to listen to the audio guide, but these quickly collided with the reality of travelling with a toddler, who seemed determined to remove my earphones every few minutes.

As a result, I learned rather less about Barcelona’s history than intended and took far fewer photos than expected, but we still enjoyed seeing different parts of the city from a new perspective.

After completing the route, we returned to the apartment for lunch with my in-laws. Later, we spent some time browsing the LEGO Store nearby before heading back out to try the Red Route.

This time, the upper deck was much busier, so we sat downstairs instead. Unfortunately, the novelty wore off fairly quickly for our youngest traveller. After another lap around the city, we eventually found ourselves back at Plaça de Catalunya.

Which meant only one thing.

The pigeons.

Our daughter immediately resumed chasing them with the same enthusiasm as before. I suspect the true highlight of Day 4 was not Barcelona’s architecture, history or famous landmarks, but simply running after pigeons in Plaça de Catalunya.

For dinner, we deliberately sought out a restaurant that opened a little earlier than most and ended up at an Asian restaurant near our apartment. By this point, I think our daughter was beginning to miss rice. She happily ate bowl after bowl of rice mixed into miso soup, which may have been the most enthusiastic meal of the entire trip.

Day 5: Montjuïc Cable Car

By Day 5, we were looking for something entertains our daughter better, and my husband came up with the idea of taking the Montjuïc Cable Car up to Montjuïc Castle.

We took the bus to the cable car station and joined the queue for tickets, which was predictably quite long. The ride itself lasts around five minutes, but it offers fantastic views across Barcelona, with the city, coastline and harbour spread out below.

We suspected that navigating a historic fortress with a buggy and a two-year-old might prove more challenging than rewarding, so we decided to leave a proper visit to the castle for another trip.

Instead, we spent some time admiring the scenery around the castle. We wandered along the surrounding paths, which were beautifully maintained and offered plenty of viewpoints. Our daughter happily came along, stopping occasionally to investigate patches of dirt and dig in the soil.

After taking the cable car back down, we decided to have lunch at a terrace bar called Salts, located right in front of the station.

Earlier that morning, we had walked past it and been intrigued by the unusual layout: rows of stepped seating overlooking an empty pool. It turned out that the site was originally used for springboard diving during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Today, the pool opens to the public during the summer months, while the terrace bar above operates year-round. It also hosts concerts and other events throughout the year.

The food was good, but the real attraction was the view. It was such an interesting spot, offering a unique setting with a panoramic vista over the entire city.

After lunch, we waited briefly at a nearby bus stop before deciding that the walking routed looked appealing enough to attempt on foot instead.

This turned a bit optimistic. The weather was warm, and the route turned out to be considerably longer than it appeared on the map. To our surprise, however, our daughter walked much of the way without complaint. Eventually, exhaustion caught up with her, and she fell asleep in the buggy, at which point we immediately found the nearest café. Coffee has never tasted quite so deserved.

We really did travel through Barcelona with very little planning. By the time we returned to our neighbourhood that evening, we once again wandered around a shopping centre waiting for restaurants to open without anything particular booked. A random place we decided to go nearby was really good, though and we all enjoyed our dinner!

Day 6: Sagrada Família and a Korean lunch in Barcelona

The Sagrada Família is one of Barcelona’s most iconic landmarks, and it felt impossible to visit the city without seeing it. Having spotted the enormous queues during our bus tour earlier in the week, however, we decided that attempting the interior with a two-year-old was probably more ambitious than necessary. We were happy enough to explore the area around it and appreciate the building from the outside.

We arrived at around 10.30am and the area was already packed with visitors. Even after seeing countless photographs over the years, the sheer scale of the building was impressive. I wonder what our daughter made of it all.

One thing I would strongly recommend to families is taking advantage of the playgrounds located on either side of the basilica. There is one in Plaça de la Sagrada Família to the west and another in Plaça de Gaudí to the east.

For parents, this is a rare win-win situation. Children can run around and play while adults enjoy some of the best views of the basilica without constantly negotiating snacks, buggy escapes or requests to be carried.

We spent most of the morning around the Sagrada Família before heading to a Korean restaurant that my brother-in-law and his wife had been keen to try, which I very much appreciated.

As for the food, I suspect my perspective as a Korean may have made me a slightly harsher judge than everyone else at the table. A couple of dishes felt somewhat underwhelming to me, but the rest of the family enjoyed their meals without complaint.

After lunch, we wandered along one of Barcelona’s broad avenues. This part of the city felt noticeably different from the Gothic Quarter. The streets followed a neat grid pattern, and everything seemed far more planned and orderly.

Along the way, we stopped for bubble tea and came across a shop called Seoul Store. It was interesting to see just how far Asian pop culture—and Korean in particular—had travelled in the past few years.

And then, inevitably, we found ourselves back at Plaça de Catalunya.

By this point, our daughter’s love affair with the pigeons was well established. The square sits right in the heart of the city, making it remarkably easy to pass through while sightseeing. Every time we did, she would immediately take off chasing her feathered friends.

I suspect that if you had asked her about highlights of Barcelona, she would have skipped over Gaudí, Gothic architecture and centuries of Catalan history and gone straight to “The place with all the pigeons!”

Day 7: CosmoCaixa Science Museum

For one of our last days in Barcelona, we debated between visiting the Barcelona Aquarium and the CosmoCaixa Science Museum. In the end, we chose the museum.

The building originally hosted Barcelona’s science museum before being extensively renovated and reopened as CosmoCaixa in 2004 with support from the Spanish banking foundation La Caixa.

Although technically a science museum, it felt like a space where science, architecture and art came together. We have visited London’s Science Museum several times, but if I am honest, I found CosmoCaixa even more memorable.

One of the first things visitors encounter is a giant pendulum suspended through the centre of the building, demonstrating the Earth’s rotation. Throughout the museum, scientific concepts are explained through large-scale interactive displays and installations that are both educational and visually striking.

The museum contains many impressive exhibits, but its most spectacular feature is arguably the recreated Amazon rainforest.

Inside a vast glass structure, tropical trees tower overhead while fish swim through large pools below. The scale is extraordinary. It feels less like a museum exhibit and more like stepping into a completely different environment.

We spent two or three hours exploring before heading to lunch with my brother-in-law’s family.

This time we met at a Malaysian restaurant called, rather straightforwardly, Malaysia Restaurant.

This ended up being my favourite meal of the entire trip. The food was excellent. I would happily return to Barcelona just to eat there again.

After such a substantial late lunch, none of us had much appetite left for dinner, so we kept things simple back at the apartment that evening.

By this point, our week in Barcelona was beginning to draw to a close.

Day 8: Park Güell

Our final day before returning to London.

Since we were in Barcelona, I felt we ought to visit at least one of Gaudí’s major works properly. We considered Casa Batlló, but with a two-year-old in tow, Park Güell seemed the more practical choice, given that it offered plenty of open space where she could move around freely. Luckily, we managed to secure tickets the evening before despite having made almost no plans in advance.

I had visited Park Güell many years earlier, but remembered surprisingly little. Most of the photographs from that trip were stored on a computer hard drive that later failed, and I lost them all. Without those images to revisit, many of the memories seem to have faded as well.

Whatever memories remained, this visit was always going to be a very different experience with a toddler. In theory, Park Güell sounded ideal for our two-year-old. Wide open spaces, fresh air and room to roam.

In practice, it turned out that giving her plenty of room to roam came with its own challenges.

Partly, I think, it was the constant worry of losing sight of a small child among the crowds. Barcelona felt considerably busier than most places we had visited, and our daughter seemed determined to explore every corner of it.

Also, travelling with a two-year-old often felt like a masterclass in contradiction. She did not want to walk when walking was required, but insisted on walking when sitting in the buggy would have been far more convenient. She wanted to run ahead whenever she needed to hold my hand, and seemed irresistibly drawn to every object she was not supposed to touch.

Even so, Park Güell was every bit as impressive as I remembered. Everywhere you looked, there were colourful mosaics, unusual shapes and details that felt more like works of art than architecture. It is one of those places where simply turning your head reveals another beautiful scene.

That afternoon, we headed to my brother-in-law’s home for one final family meal before our trip came to an end.

The atmosphere in the residential area on the outskirts of Barcelona felt quite different from the city centre. Away from the crowds, the neighbourhoods felt much calmer and more local.

We may have arrived with very little planning, but looking back, we managed to fit quite a lot into the week. Beaches, playgrounds, pigeons, cable cars, museums, Gaudí, and plenty of good food along the way.

It was our chance to experience Barcelona both as visitors and, at least briefly, through the eyes of family members who actually lived there.

Even now, it is a city I look back on fondly and would happily return to, this time with my daughter a little order.