If you’ve ever done a Google Images search for “Barcelona,” then you’ve undoubtedly seen the picture: a spiky-looking cathedral perched on a hill, a golden statue of Jesus with his arms outstretched, Rio-de-Janeiro style, balanced on top.

With this in mind, you couldn’t be blamed for assuming this is one of Barcelona’s most important icons. (Last year when I had a countdown to a Barcelona trip on my phone, even I was suckered in to selecting a photo of this church to go along with the countdown, despite knowing nothing about it. The photo was so pretty though, and the sunset made it extra dramatic.)

But the truth is that this church isn’t one of Barcelona’s most famous, and most visitors to the city never actually venture out to see it. I’d been to Barcelona four or five times and knew this church existed but had no idea what it was called or how to get there. Until our most recent visit, when we had a free day, and I decided I was finally going to figure it out. [Read more…]

While I’ve been to Barcelona about four or five times now, my most recent visit was extra special — Matt and I got married in the countryside of Catalonia, and our families were in town with us in Barcelona for a few days! Not long after meeting up with my parents, my mom mentioned that she wanted to visit Montserrat, but she couldn’t figure out the best way to get there. After a little bit of research, we decided to book a Barcelona to Montserrat tour that also included tapas and wine tasting.

So the next morning, we set off on our excursion from Barcelona — and we had such a good day and learned so much! Here’s exactly what our day looked like, if you’re interested in the same Barcelona to Montserrat tour. [Read more…]

If you’ve recently arrived in Spain for your holiday in Benidorm, you may have noticed that Benidorm doesn’t have its own airport — instead, you flew into Alicante. While you likely hopped on a bus or grabbed a taxi up to Benidorm, Alicante has plenty to see and do as well! So if you’re interested in doing a bit of exploring, here’s what you need to know about taking a day trip from Benidorm to Alicante. [Read more…]

When I lived in Madrid, one of my favorite things to do when I had a free weekend was take a day trip from Madrid to another city. Now that we’re based in Alicante, we want to do the same thing! A few weeks ago we spent an afternoon in Elche, and last week we finally visited the city of Murcia.

Here’s what you need to know about taking a day trip from Alicante to Murcia. [Read more…]

Traveling by train is one of my favorite things about living in Spain. I feel like I must have done it 100 times by now. But on my most recent trip between Alicante and Madrid, I had a brand new experience: Rather than traveling with Renfe, Spain’s national rail operator, I tried a competitor called Ouigo.

Ouigo is a French rail company, and it entered the Spanish market in March 2021. Up until that point, Renfe had a complete monopoly on the high-speed rail market in Spain. So considering that I moved back to the U.S. in 2020, it makes sense that I didn’t have a chance to try Ouigo until recently. In fact, I had never even heard of it — and I’d also never heard of the other new Renfe competitor, Iryo.

So, here’s my Ouigo train review of what it was like to travel round-trip between Madrid and Alicante. [Read more…]

While I spent two years living in Madrid, one of the things that excited me the most about moving to Alicante, sight unseen, was all the new things I’d get to experience by living somewhere new. It turns out that a lot of the things I thought were “Spain things” were actually just Madrid things. And day by day, I’m learning what things are Alicante things — especially in regards to food!

So here are just a few of the special foods to try in Alicante during your next visit. [Read more…]

Settling back into our lives in Spain after 6 weeks in the U.S. was always going to be a little bit tricky — we had to conquer jet lag, adjust to working different hours, and get back into routines like going to Spanish class. But one city-wide celebration made the whole thing so much more chaotic. (And meant that things didn’t officially go back to “normal” for us until about 10 days after we got back to Spain.) This celebration, the Hogueras de Alicante, is the city’s biggest annual festival, and I’m so glad we didn’t miss it! [Read more…]

We are finally back in Alicante after six weeks in the U.S., and the city is buzzing with excitement thanks to the annual Hogueras festival. (Look for my next post on that… I’m still figuring out what all it entails.) In the meantime, my little sister Carrie is here visiting, and we wanted to take her to the beach. Alicante actually has its very own beach, Playa del Postiguet, and it’s only a 20-minute walk from here! But it’s not our beach of choice. Instead, when we want to go to the beach, we head out of the city to a smaller town named San Juan.

We’ve now been to San Juan twice, and each was a slightly different experience, but both have been amazing beach days that left me very happy that we decided to go there instead of Postiguet.

So here are 5 reasons why you should visit Playa San Juan. [Read more…]