made4you Traveltips Megacity Barcelona, Costa Brava


Where to stay in Barcelona, accommodation While the Hotel prices in Barcelona are very high and mostly without Breackfast, we decided for an apartement. Our Appartement from Holidays in Barcelona is located central in a narrow street behind Plaça Cataluña and nevertheless absolut quiet. Las Ramblas, Barri Gòtic, Palau de la Musica, the shopping mall - all locations are reachable in a few minutes by foot. Staircase and Apartment are newly refurbished, living room equiped with audio, TV and aircondition, the kitchen fully equipped with electrik cooker, Microwave, refrigerator with separate icebox, washing machine, Laminat floor. On the very kind furnishing we recognize immediately, that the renters try hard for the guests feeling as comfortable like at home. A small terrasse with lawn chairs and parasol in the courtyard invites to have breackfast outdoors. Two bakeries with fresh bread and delicious Croissants are in walking distance.

Barcelona Card and Bus Tourístic

For the 1. Day in Barcelona it is usefull to make the fullday city sight-seeing tour with an open double-decker bus Bus Turístic, so you get a good overall impression of the Megacity. There are 3 lines - red, blue and green. Included in the ticket price is also a discount booklet.
On 2.,3. and 4. Day we bought the Barcelona Card.
The 5. Day is reserved to a daytrip to Monastery Montserrat.
The Barcelona Card allows free ride with Bus and Metro in the whole urban area. Additional there is discount for the entrance fee to many Museums and churches. The Barcelona Card can be ordered in the Internet at Turisme de Barcelona with 10 % discount. You can pick up the card at Barcelona airport Terminal A or B and in the Information Centre at Plaça Catalunya.
The discount booklets complement one another partly, so you can find the discounts for Funicular, Tramvia Blau and Tot Montserrat Card only in the Bus Turístic booklet.
Barcelona is a very expensive city, it can be worth evaluating the discount-jungle and spending time on that. In 5 days you may save 50 to 100 €Euro per person.

Tot Montserrat Card

For a daytrip to Monastery Montserrat you can buy the Tot Montserrat Card, including 30 € Metro + FGC-Trail from Plaça d'Espanya + Rack train + Funiculars + Museum + Audiovisual Show and even lunch is included (multilangual Infoflyer in pdf-Format).
The FGC-train leaves daily from Plaça d'Espanya at 8.36 o'clock and each additional hour.

Alternatively you can of course also go organized with Catalunya Busturistic from Plaça Catalunya for about 60 Euro per Person (-3 Euro discount with the coupon from Bus Turistic booklet). The program consists of a combined sightseeing tour vineyard Torres -> Monastery Montserrat -> seaside resort Sitges.
Disadvantage: Short time stay on the monastery mountain, Funicular mountain railway to the summit Montserrat costs an additional fee.

Best travelseason

Although in the off-season still an huge number of tourists made holidays in Barcelona (long queues at bus Turístic and outside the Sagrada Familia), one has to take from 1st October some limitations in sightseeing and shopping:

Evening water games with Music at the Plaça d'Espagna only Saturdays,
Amusement park Tibidabor is open in off-season only at weekend,
Museums close partly already earlier.

For visiting Palau de la Musica you must make a reservation at least one day in advance.

Where to stay at Costa Brava

In the mountainous outback of the Costa Brava there are many beautiful ancient castles and farms, which offer Tourism Rural.

Costa Brava Tourism Rural in the beautiful La Pera village

We resided at Can Massa by Carmen and Josep Massa in La Pera. The rustical furnished rooms are located around the dining area. The breakfast was excellent.
Just search for a suitable restaurant for the evening meal turned out to be somewhat difficult in October as restaurants either already had closed or were extremely expensive. Half board would be quite nice.

Our hand carved bed in Can Massa is more than 200 years old.

I have asked some other beautiful Rural properties in the Costa Brava, but they were at the beginning of October still fully booked:

Can Mas, a idyllic country estate from the 17th century
El Moli, one with the tourist Premium Award 1996 honoured estate near Siurana
Sant Dionis, a castle from the 13. Jhd. near Campllong

In addition, there are big directories with Turismo Rural on the Costa Brava, such as Top Rural or Turisme Rural Girona.

Residence Can Mas near Sant Pere Pescador

Rent a car

For our 4-day Costa Brava roundtrip we rent a Seat Ibiza from CarDelMar. CarDelMar offers rent a cars with unlimited kilometres travelled and full ensurance without own risk.
The original cardealer was Europcar, CarDelMar is only a broker with very attractive prices.

Vor our pleasure we got in the smallest rent category a quick Seat Ibiza Turbodiesel.
Diesel cost in October 2006 in Spain around 93 cents per liter.

Autobahnmaut

The Costa Brava highway A7 is toll road, so the piece from Barcelona to Girona costs EUR 5.95 Euro and from Girona to Figueres 2.45 Euro each oneway.

Travel weatherforcast for Barcelona and the Costa Brava:

Questions - Then please go to our Barcelona or Costa Brava discussion forum

Daytrips, favorite excursions, city sightseeing tour

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Megacity Barcelona, Costa Brava
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Where to stay in Barcelona, accommodation