This is the first post of our lovely new correspondent from Barcelona, Laia Arriols – an illustrator, photographer and owner of Apanona, a beautiful online shop filled with her gorgeous items and illustrations! A huge welcome and we look forward to many great posts like this one!
Montjuïc is a mountain in Barcelona nearby the sea. It’s an historical and emblematic place of the city with lot of history. The Olympic Games that took place in Barcelona in 1992 gave a new relevance to the mountain and became a very popular place of the city. Yet, it has museums, schools, stadiums, pools, beautiful gardens, etc. So, Barcelona residents usually choose this mountain to spend their leisure and sport time.
The idea for this family journey to Barcelona, was to spend all day in Montjuïc by doing all kinds of cultural and leisure activities.
We started our day at Fundació Joan Miró an amazing museum dedicated to the work and life of this Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. Miró artwork is perfect to introduce kids in the world of arts: colors, shapes, themes, etc. are great visual elements that appeals to children attention and that seems that speaks in their same childish language. Plus in Fundació Joan Miró you can admire artwork of many other great artists like Alexander Calder, Eduardo Chillida, René Magritte and Antoni Tàpies.
We spent the morning going up and down the beautiful, mediterranean building designed by Josep Lluis Sert, and sometimes, getting overwhelmed by the amazing art collection. Lovely time!
It's lunch time! This recommendation I found in Mamma Proof (a collaborative website that share best places and activities for kids and families in Barcelona and Madrid) was great: La Caseta del Migdia a simple and lovely place to eat BBQ meat, salad and chips among an amazing little forest of pine trees and magnificent views of Barcelona harbour. You can't believe you are in the city!
After a little playing time for the girls, and a cup of coffee and resting time for us, we follow our tour at Petit Piknic, the family friendly zone of Piknic Electronik Barcelona (an electronic music festival). This space is full of fun kids activities: Inflatables, jumping beds, mini circus school, XL soap bubbles, pedal carts, painting faces...crazy time!
It's 07:00 PM and closing time for Petit Piknic. A quick visit to El Mirador de l'Alcalde to admire the awesome views of Barcelona, and we are ready to take the cable way to reach the top of the mountain! Yes!
A nice and exciting travel in cableway! The Castle of Montjuic is waiting for us!
Once there, girls were more interested in the XL slides we promised to, than in the Montjuic Castle... so we decided to took a little walk to find it..and we did! Really speedy, funny and long slides!
At this time we were exhausted, so was time to went back home. But before leaving the city, we say goodbye to the Columbus statue that points towards New York! See you soon!
