Our first morning in Barcelona.

Rain. That’s how we stepped into the day. Lately, we haven’t had much luck with the weather on our trips, not like before. Even in London we only got properly soaked once. In Portugal, we almost swam through the streets of Lisbon.

Anja says her throat hurts, but that she’ll be fine. Between my sore eye and Nara’s cold, we were starting to feel more suited for bed than for exploring the city. Luckily, we still had our Nia, our eight-year-old swimmer, the only one healthy as a horse.

Montjuïc

The morning was devoted to exploring the Jewish Mountain, which is what Montjuïc means in Catalan, since Jews had their cemetery on its slopes in the Middle Ages.

Geographically, the hill rises almost 200 meters between the sea and the city, and for centuries it has served as an important lookout and defensive point.

The 17th-century fortress on the summit confirms that role, even though its history is also a dark one.

Defensive structures often turn into tools of repression in the hands of authorities hungry for control. During Franco’s dictatorship, it served as a prison, a torture site, and a place of executions. That’s why many Catalans today see this very fortress as a symbol of repression and, at the same time, a symbol of resistance against it.

Palau Nacional

An imposing palace crowns the hill, built for the 1929 World’s Fair, where the world was meant to see technological progress, art, and above all what humans are capable of building.

That very exhibition gave this part of the city its present form.

It’s interesting how, through our travels, we keep noticing the role these fairs, essentially the predecessors of today’s Expos, played in making cities world-famous.

From the Eiffel Tower in Paris, to Plaza de España in Seville, all the way to Lisbon, where the Expo created an entirely new district along the Tagus River.

Inside the palace is the National Museum of Catalan Art (MNAC), which houses one of the richest collections of Romanesque frescoes in the world.

We didn’t plan to go inside, since I doubted it would be especially interesting for the girls. The idea was to go up to the viewing terrace, right to the spot where Anja and I had been 13 years ago.

To wrap up this hill.

It was put back at the center of the world during the 1992 Olympic Games, and today it holds the city’s largest green spaces, botanical gardens, museums, and walking paths. From the other side of the city, from the harbor, you can take a cable car up to the top.

But that’s not for us. Once we’re on the ground, we are very deliberately ground-level tourists, even though we do most of our traveling by plane. Now make sense of that if you can.

Poble Espanyol and the Christmas Streets

We weren’t in a hurry in the morning, since our first entry wasn’t until 10 a.m. Near the hotel, 110 steps were waiting for us, taking us up to the first level of the hill. That’s when we saw it for the first time. The Sagrada Família. All you can really say is wow. A proper reward for all those steps we had just climbed.

Just a short walk away is the entrance to the Spanish Village, Poble Espanyol. It’s another product of the World’s Fair, created to show visitors the typical streets, squares, houses, and architecture of different regions of Spain. During the holiday season, the village transforms into its Natalis version, with decorations everywhere, gifts, lights, music, and creative workshops.

And that was exactly where we were headed. We were among the first inside, so we could wander the streets almost on our own and take them in.

There was something else that really stood out. Around the Christmas tree, which by the way was one of the most beautifully decorated ones we’ve ever seen, there were orange trees everywhere. It looked fantastic. Someone had cleverly tangled little elf legs into them, which only added to the Christmas feel.

We took a million photos because it really was that pretty.

And then, around the corner, there he was. The Grinch. He and Anja hugged like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. The Grinch and Home Alone are her favorite Christmas movies. It was perfect.We kept running into fairies and elves all over the village, but the Grinch won by a mile.

By a small church, a beautiful view over Barcelona opened up, and we immediately thought it would be the perfect place to watch the fireworks. Later, one of the little elves told me they were having a private New Year’s party right there, so that idea of ours quietly floated away.

We wandered around the Christmas streets and among the orange trees for quite a while, and in the end stopped for waffles with Nutella and white chocolate. Everything was great. Only snow was missing.

Font Màgica The Magic Fountain and Les Quatre Columnes

So Anja wouldn’t overdo it, we decided to skip the planned viewpoint by the palace and instead started heading down toward the fountain at Plaça d’Espanya, where preparations for New Year’s were already underway.

The fountain was also built for that same World’s Fair.

As we found out later one evening, it puts on an unforgettable show of water, music, and light, and it’s free. It really is magical.

Behind it rise four powerful Ionic columns which, at first glance, well… slightly ruin the view of the palace in the background, but they carry strong symbolic meaning for Catalan identity. They represent the four stripes on the senyera, the Catalan flag.

As you walk away from the Magic Fountain, you can’t help but keep glancing back over your shoulder at Montjuïc. That view is truly spectacular. The only problem is that the best spot is right in the middle of the road. So I waited for the green light and walked back and forth across the crosswalk a few times to catch the shot I wanted.

On your way from the fountain to the metrо station, you can’t avoid passing between two large towers known as the Venetian Towers, meant as the gateway from Plaça d’Espanya toward Montjuïc. They too were built for the World’s Fair and were inspired by none other than the famous one on St. Mark’s Square in Venice.

At the time, Venice was a symbol of European beauty and historic grandeur, so the desire for that kind of inspiration makes perfect sense.

Back to the hotel

And then, on the square, the turn.

Anja says she doesn’t feel well. Just as I was unsuccessfully looking for the metro entrance, she says she feels weak. The decision was instant and unanimous: we’re going back to the hotel.

Where the hell is a taxi when you need one? Nowhere. So we walked.

Later Anja told me she thought we had taken a taxi. The fever was clearly already doing its thing.

When we got back to the room, the rain started pouring down outside. You know how it goes. Everything is good for something, because I doubt we would have gotten much out of the day in that rain anyway.

A few hours in bed might help. Just in case, I checked if there was a hospital nearby.

Reset

This was the first time someone actually got sick on one of our trips. Sure, someone had been a bit under the weather before we left, but I’ve always said it’s better to have a cold in London, Dublin, Helsinki, or Barcelona than to have it at home. Before a trip, that risk is covered by cancellation insurance. If it happens, it happens. Once you’re there, there’s not much you can do except rely on your travel medicine kit and hope for the best.

In my head, I canceled tomorrow’s trip to Tibidabo and let go of the rest of the planning.

Anja fell asleep. At three I checked her temperature, still high. At four, borderline. At six we had tickets for the light show at Santa Maria del Pi. Do we stay in or do we go? Is it even smart? Of course you worry, because you don’t know what’s coming. She said she wanted to go.

Looking back now, that fear of illness while traveling is just as stressful as when you’re at home. You react to the situation, not the location. Maybe that’s the lesson for next time.

Since any real effort was out of the question, I contacted the taxi driver who had picked us up at the airport. He said 30 euros to take us into the center. I knew it was a rip-off, but what could we do.

The ride that changed everything

We slowly got ready and waited for the taxi. The driver was still a man of few words, maybe feeling a bit guilty about the inflated price. Just past La Rambla, he turned off the main road and, over the retractable bollards, drove into Carrer del Pi. All fine, except the street was full of pedestrians. We moved along at a snail’s pace, people staring at us like we’d fallen from the sky or were slightly out of our minds. I felt awkward, the girls were uncomfortable, and really, we were all a bit in shock.

When we talked about it later, we realized that this crazy ride might have been the very moment when things turned around.

Maybe it was the adrenaline of being in a taxi surrounded by a crowd of pedestrians staring at you in disbelief, maybe it was because we felt uncomfortable and awkward. It had to be something like that, because it woke all of us up and, in a way, filled us with energy. Most of all Anja, which was what mattered most.

Barcelona Cathedral and Plaça de Sant Jaume

Since we still had some time before the show, we decided to visit the cathedral nearby. We made our way through narrow streets that once again felt very Venetian and came out onto an open square. We searched in vain for the cathedral’s famous façade. A few days later we realized we had given up about 20 meters too early.

We followed the crowd and walked under the bridge on Carrer del Bisbe, one of Barcelona’s key photo spots. The bridge again brought to mind the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, as you pass the Doge’s Palace. We’ve never noticed so many similarities between two cities anywhere else. I haven’t found a solid explanation for it, although I doubt the similarities are just coincidence.

The street with the bridge opens out onto Plaça de Sant Jaume, the square of political power, home to City Hall and the seat of the Catalan government.

Then time started pushing us, and we had to head back to the site of the day’s final act.

The laser projection was phenomenal. It looks as if the inside of the church breaks apart, dissolves, disappears. The show lasts a good half hour.

Santa Maria del Pi

Del Pi means “by the pine,” because according to local tradition a mighty pine tree once stood here, in whose crown an image of the Virgin Mary was said to have been found.

It’s one of the city’s oldest churches, striking for its Gothic style and the huge rose window above the entrance. I’ve always found Gothic churches more beautiful than Baroque ones.

The interior is tall and dark, the walls are thick. But we weren’t here for the silence. We came for the light.

Luminiscence is a light show where Gothic architecture meets digital art. I chose the golden ticket because it gives you seats farther back, with a view of the entire nave.

We loved how, over more than half an hour, the church tells its own story. What it has been through, how it bled, how it blossomed, and how it came back to life again. All of this unfolds in a remarkable light show, as the church is built and taken apart before your eyes.

It ends with the “Ode to Joy,” the European anthem from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. You feel that you’re part of something bigger.

Discovering these light shows, first in Porto and now here, has been a real revelation. Now I look for them everywhere we go.

What a day it was.

From there, back toward La Rambla. Another taxi. This time 10 euros. Anja was already feeling much better.

When we got back to the room, a strange smell was coming from the bathroom again, this time like someone was baking something. But I simply didn’t have the energy anymore to go down to the front desk.

And that was that day.

It started beautifully, then in the middle of it put the whole trip into question, later pulled us back with a strange ride, and ended with a light show in a 14th-century Gothic church in the middle of Barcelona.

We don’t yet know what tomorrow will bring. We’ll decide in the morning. For now, just sleep.