We are headed to Barcelona and would like to do a couple of Rick's walking tours. But we can only do fairly short walks, a mile or so, so would like to know ahead of time if the walks would work for us.
By “Ricks walking tours” are you referring to the audio tours on his app or to tours offered by guides recommended in his guidebooks or to something else?
Well, not sure the audio tours assign actual distances, but you can look at length of time (the Barcelona City Walk is 1.5 hours for example), with some of that time standing, or sitting, and listening to descriptions of where you are. There are also maps, which you could try to duplicate in Google maps to get distances, I guess (My guess using Google maps is that the walk is 1-1.5 miles). The nice thing about audio tours is you can set the pace, skip stuff, have a rest, eat some lunch, or do only parts.
I'm referring to the walking tours described in his guidebook. I would like to know how long they are.
To TheOridinary Rebecca. Thank you for the suggestion. I think I can figure out the distances now. I've followed guidebooks walks before but never downloaded any audio walks. We'll do that and take our time. Thank you.
I took all of Rick's walking tours as described in his guidebook when I visited Barcelona in 2014.
Though the walks varied, they averaged around 1 mile to 1.75 miles. In terms of time, the walks were around 1 to 2-plus hours. I tend to linger on walks, so your time might be a bit shorter.
Craig, thank you. Since we are slow walkers, this answers my question perfectly.
You can always do part of the walk if it’s too long. We did that in Naples. We intended to finish the walk another day, but never got to it.
Rick's best walk is the Barri Gotic walk in part because it takes you back a 500 to 1,000 years through Barcelona's Gothic Quarter. One of the highlights was seeing the Placa del Rei, or Royal Palace. In 1493, Christopher Columbus, accompanied by six New World natives (whom he called "Indians") and several pure-gold statues, entered the Royal Palace. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel rose to welcome him home and honored with the title of "Admiral of the Oceans". Also, the Jewish Quarter or El Call was fascinating to see. At its height, El Call was home to some 4,000 people crammed into just a few alleys. A synagogue is still operating there.
It would be a great addition to Rick's walking tour materials to add distances (hint hint).