Barcelona w/ a child- reasonable expectations?

Hi Megan,

Yes, it does sound perfectly do-able.

Further info, in case it's handy:

FOR DAY 3
1. Very close to Museu Picasso, you have a small museum showing the remains of mammoths from the prehistoric Barcelona.
2. Also close, on your way to Ciutadella: El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria with the ruins of part of the neighbourhood of La Ribera, torn down by the Spanish after they won the 1701-1714 war against the Catalans.
3. The Museu de la Xocolata (chocolate museum) is also nearby and has activities for kids.
4. In Parc de la Ciutadella you can also find the Barcelona Zoo.

Enjoy!

Oooh! We love mammoths! Might need to try to squeeze them in or use it as an alternative to the park if we have rain.
Thank you, Enric!

Assuming you're planning a visit to the Monuments area of Park Guell, it's very kid friendly and a great place of stretching your legs. They have a school in the area and the students use the grounds, so it's a relaxing space. The bathrooms inside the area are much better than the ones at the top, outside the area. They do adhere to entry times and they do not allow re-entry. The rest of the park is free to enjoy.

Thanks, Patty. I almost forgot about the importance of a good bathroom. :) And, yes, my reasoning for leaving Park Guell til last is so that the kid can run off the remainder of his energy while the adults sit and watch.

... a bunch of brats running around and screaming like mad you call it "relaxing", Patty?, I wonder what "bustling" means to you then, hahahaha!

Megan, note I said a "small" museum... please don't get your expectations too high. And then you say "rain", huh?, what's that? :))).... you'd be really unlucky if you catch rain now in June. And if you do, it's going to be a short downpour which by no means will mess up your day. We do have all-day-grey-miserable-weather from time to time, but it's not "the norm", not in summer anyway.

The Boqueria Market is on La Rambla. There's also a fairly large supermarketon La Rambla, and El Corte Ingles at Placa de Catalunya at the "top" of La Rambla. Those might be easily accessible by metro from your apartment.

The Chocolate Museum is near the Picasso, but the chocolate wasn't great. There are some chocolate "sculptures" but mostly it's reading about the history and the preparation process. There was a school group in the kitchen having fun, but I don't know how they handle individual visitors.

Thank you, Chani. We're lucky to have the Mercat de la Conceptio directly behind our apartment. We'll probably buy most of our food there.
We should do fine speaking only English and Spanish, right?

Certainly you should do fine with English and Spanish in markets in Barcelona and anywhere in Spain. However, you might not understand all the signage. I remember in one market seeing a prominent sign on one case that read simply "6 ous = 1 €". What country has a currency called the "ou", I thought, and were there enough visitors from that country to merit a sign in the market, as no other exchange rates were posted, so I asked. "Eggs! Ous is Catalan for eggs, huevos" I was advised, with a smile.

I have taken a 9 year old child to Europe for a month. It was helpful to get him involved in the planning which really helped a lot. He wrote out an entire itinerary for everything we wanted to do, noting museum closures. This part was for 9 days in Paris. It was very successful. He was also a picky eater with dairy allergies and we were able to find food that he liked.

Also we had lodging close to the center so that when we got tired we could take a quick nap and a break and head out again. Very fun trip.

Wow! I really appreciate the wonderful feedback!

Larry- Good to know! Eggs are certainly on my grocery list. I'm positive there will be plenty of other signs to confuse me while I'm there.

Claire- Yes! He's been very involved in planning this trip. He's an only child and we've found that the house stays peaceful when we all three work together as a team. We sat down together with our "must see" lists and tried to work out a reasonable plan. The Picasso Museum was his first choice and I've no doubt that he could be a more interesting tour guide through the building than any audioguide. :) We've also chosen a rather central apartment to stay in. We have a close friend (a young man from Spain who lived with us for a year while he taught in the US) staying with us as well...so we'll have a built-in babysitter and helpful guide when needed.

Bill- I have a son. :) We might think of visiting the Cosmo Caixa if we need something to fill in some time. He really is interested in the history and culture of Barcelona, so I probably won't put it at the top of the list. He goes to a school here in the States that teaches the children entirely in Spanish and teaches Spanish and Latin American culture as well. He already knows quite a bit about Spain, so he is excited to visit some of the places his teachers (many who are from Spain themselves) have told him about.

MeganFae.... I don't want to spoil your hopes but the local language here in Catalonia is Catalan, and Spanish is co-official. Both languages are spoken as there has been a lot of immigration during the past 150 years and for some people Spanish is their mother-tongue. But being Catalan the local language, a lot of signage is in Catalan only. In government/public places (metro, museums, etc) being Spanish co-official, signage is always also in Spanish and often in English too.

As per people, we all learn Spanish (and other languages) at school so even for those of us that Spanish is not our mother-tongue we know how to speak it. With foreigners, we tend to use Spanish as it's more likely that if you've learnt one of the languages this will be Spanish rather than Catalan, but among us everyone uses his own. Thus, it's quite normal that in a conversation there'll be people speaking in Catalan and people speaking in Spanish indistinctively since we understand both. It's simply a matter of respecting the language everyone is more comfortable with. This last remark hopefully answers a typical question asked by many visitors: "will I offend someone who's mother tongue is Catalan if I address him/her in Spanish?"... no, you won't, you're not expected to learn Catalan for your short visit, lol! Having said that, if you want to warm up to Catalans showing that you care by learning a few words will always be a hit in your armoury of charm... http://wikitravel.org/en/Catalan_phrasebook

So you know :))

Whenever you see it, don't miss the Casa Batllo. It was actually worth the high admission fee, and I would have loved it when I was 8 (I'm 53 and still enjoyed the animations on the audio-video guide tour).

The Ramblas as a whole is quite underwhelming, but the living statues are fun, and the Boqueria Market is certainly worth visiting. Otherwise, I wouldn't waste time planning a long Ramblas walk; the walk from the market to the living statues should be sufficient.

Yes, a fair amount of signage is in Catalan, and contrary to what the Rough Guide says, it often doesn't look like a cross between French and Spanish (called "castellano" in Spain, by the way, not "español"). Take this example:

English: closed [like a store]
Castillian: cerrado
French: fermé
Catalan: tancat

Words can even be different in Catalan when they similar in other Romance languages and English:

English: salad
Castillian: ensalada
French: salade
Catalan: amanida (good luck figuring that one out without a dictionary!)

Of course, some words do indeed look like a cross between Spanish and French:

English: exit
Castillian: salida
French: sortie
Catalan: sortida

So, prepare your son that he should not expect to understand all signs. However, if he wants to speak Castillian in Barcelona, he will have no problems (at least I didn't).