What to do during a 6 hour layover in Barcelona

Hello, readers!

I know that long layovers are a bit of a bummer when you’re traveling. However, if they’re long enough, within a day-time time frame and if the airport is relatively close to the city centre, layovers can be quite fun!

As I mentioned in a previous post about our trip to Croatia, we had a layover in Barcelona - on the way back to Portugal, the layover was 6 hours long so it gave us some time to visit the city.

Sebastian goes to Barcelona almost every year, and since it was my first time there he was in charge of deciding where we would go. We landed in the El Prat airport at around 12pm. We decided to leave our luggage in the airport, which we paid around 8 EUR for (quite affordable when comparing to other international airports). Afterwards, we headed to the terminal parking and paid around 11.8 EUR for a round-trip ticket with Aerobus, which is the bus that circulates between the airport and the city centre. Their website has a lot of information about how it works, so make sure you check it out. We didn’t have much time - between dropping off our luggage, catching the bus and heading back to the airport, we had about 4 hours in the city, so we didn’t plan on visiting any museums or attractions on the inside. We were more like on a hunt! So here’s a little summary of our trip:

1. Plaça d’Espanya

2. Sagrada Familia

3. Casa Batlló

4. La Boqueria

5. Gothic Quarter

The bus stops at different parts of the city. We left right on the first stop, in Pl. Espanya. Walked along Avinguda de la Reina Maria Cristina and took a few minutes to admire the Magic Fountain, the four columns and the MNCA (national art museum of Catalunya). I’m going to be very honest - this was already 4 years ago, and since we didn’t spend that much time here, I don’t remember that much to be able to say if this is something worth visiting or not. This happens mostly because my memory is as good as a fish’s, ahah. Fun fact, this is one of the main reasons I decided to start this blog!

This was in the middle of September, but this area - which I believe is very attractive to tourists - was not half as busy as I thought it would be. The day was foggy but quite warm, and very very humid - this is something I heard a lot about Barcelona that honestly makes me wonder if I want to go there during summer (I really don’t deal well with extreme heat!).

After walking for a bit, we decided to catch the metro in Plaça de Espanya to Sagrada Familia. If I’m not mistaken, we took the L3 line and switched to the L5 in Diagonal, and in L5 we got off at the Sagrada Familia station. This area was a lot busier - there were tons of large groups gazing at the iconic cathedral. We got close enough so we could just stare at it for a bit, take some pictures (of course) and then we headed to the closest McDonald’s - I was starving so much and this tasted like heaven after a busy morning!

Sebastian’s purpose was to show me the icons of Barcelona, so our next stop was Casa Batlló, so we took the metro and headed to Passeig de Gràcia. I believe this was one of my favourite parts of this small tour, as this house is definitely different from anything you could have ever seen! If you’ve never heard of it, Casa Batlló was designed by Gaudí for the Batlló family, and it went against any common architecture traces of that time. It’s amazing to see how different and out of the box this building is!

After a few minutes, we started heading to the market La Boqueria. This is the most famous market in Barcelona, and here you will be able to find different market stands selling a huge range of different types of food and fresh produce - from eggs to cut up fruit and smoothies, this market is so colourful and full of fresh scents! All the products on the stands are perfectly displayed, it makes you want to buy everything. I only had a dragon-fruit and coconut smoothie, but I definitely would have gone there more times to try other stuff if I had the chance!

Since we didn’t have much more time before catching the Aerobus back to the airport, we finished our layover by walking around the Ramblas and the Gothic Quarter of the city, which is also really fun!

I’ve heard Barcelona can be quite a dangerous city regarding pickpockets and burglary. Since we were only there for a few hours, fortunately I didn’t feel threatened or in danger at any point. I’ve heard that this is one of those cities where you do need to be really careful with your belongings and personal safety. If you come from a big and busy city, you probably already know this by now. Although this was what I heard about Barcelona, I’ve read some articles that state that it is actually a safe city. Here goes one article about safety in the city in case you’re curious to see someone else’s opinion on this.

Anyway, this didn’t scare me into wanting to go back to Barcelona in the future. In fact - obviously, lol - 4 hours doesn’t give you the chance to see and enjoy that much, but we still had a good look around the city and I saw some of the things I’ve been wanting to visit for a very long time. If you have the chance, I think it’s very worth it to step out of the airport and run through the city for a while!