Just one city remained on our itinerary before flying home to Canada, but it was one of Spain’s most visited – the Catalonian capital of Barcelona. As legendary as it is, Barcelona itself wasn’t a destination that was for us in any way pre-ordained, but rather the confluence of three very separate but fortuitous travel situations:
1. While looking for suitable flights out of Europe for the summer, we noticed that the Canadian airline, Westjet, had a great sale on flights ex Barcelona, with just one stop to Kelowna ( as direct as we can get ! ) – we grabbed two tickets.
2. Grimaldi shipping had an especially attractive ferry route/fare from Sardinia direct to Barcelona, saving us the considerable time, hassle and expense of an otherwise long drive (1,420km) around the north shore of the Mediterranean from Rome to Barcelona
3. And, finally, through sheer serendipitous happenstance, we were connected ( by a Canadian contact ) with a Barcelona vehicle broker who was able to offer us secure, covered, and affordable storage for the van during the 4 months we would be in Canada.
So it just seemed that everything pointed to Barcelona as the best place to park up and fly out of – the fact that it’s also a very beautiful city to visit was just icing on the cake.
Renowned for its art and architecture ( most famously, Gaudi’s Sagrada Família) Barcelona has become a hugely popular tourism destination in Europe. I mean hugely popular. To put its popularity in perspective and demonstrate just how absolutely completely overwhelmed the place is by tourists, an estimated 30 million people visit Barcelona each year, while Spain’s capital, Madrid ( twice Barcelona’s size ) sees barely 1/3 of that. Readers may recall the ant-tourism protests here back in the summer of 2025, where angry locals protested the impact tourism was having on the city by squirting water pistols at tourists as they marched through the city streets shouting, waving “Tourists Go Home placards ! Yes, it REALLY happened. Rents had skyrocketed pricing local families and ( essential ) service workers out of the accommodation market, AirBnB’s were proliferating, traffic had become insane and it all just boiled over. Other European cities saw similar protests but I guess the Barcelona water pistol activities just got most of the attention. Seems to have calmed now ( we were not squirted ! ) but the problems remain. Tourism here certainly has not slowed down.
Luckily we’d seen the major attractions ( Sagrada Familia, etc ) on our first visit here in 1985 as locals informed us there is often a two week wait for reservations ( so one needs to book well in advance – never our style anyway ! ). We did walk past it while exploring the city on the only sightseeing day we had here and noticed the crowds were huge, lineups long ( and it’s only May ). Sadly, very visible cranes somewhat diminished the photo ops, but it remains a stunning structure.
Much of what defines this city is the unique architecture, especially the Gaudi-inspired modernist work ( the Sagrada, Park Guell, Casa Battlo and others ), but also the beautiful apartment buildings on the long leafy boulevards (practically every street here is tree-lined), and it’s famous landmarks. We thought Italian cities had lots of cafe’s and restaurants – Barcelona is right up there ! It’s a city with a great vibe, easy to get around, and very pedestrian friendly. We look forward to returning when we’ll have a bit more time.
Much of our (already limited) time in the city was spent preparing the van for storage -cleaning it, emptying the service tanks, shutting off power supplies etc – and getting it out to the storage location west of the city. This all went to plan and we feel comfortable that our “home away from home” will be well cared for in our absence. Finding covered storage was a real godsend as summers are typically very hot here.
Our van secured, some brief sightseeing completed, we made our way to Barcelona airport for the flight home to Kelowna ( via Calgary ) – incredibly convenient to be able to reach Kelowna in just one “hop” from here, certainly not what we expected. Always a tinge of sadness as we leave the rig in storage, tempered though, by the excitement of going home. Where did the last 4 months go ?
This being the final blog post for the current chapter of our European/Mediterranean travels, both Lois and I would like to thank all readers who have followed along for the past 4 months. Stay safe, enjoy the summer months, we plan to be back at it again in September and ( for those out traveling ) I hope our paths cross at some point down the road !
