Day 4 & 5 - FFWD - Benicarló, Spain to Barcelona, Spain

June 24-25, 2026 - biked 25 km (15 mi), train'd 220 km (137 mi) - biked 214 km (133 mi) total

We only have two months off, so we don't actually have enough time to ride the full EuroVelo 8. So on this trip we are taking some judicious skip days via train, and today is one of those days! We shaved off three days of biking by taking a 3 hour regional rail train straight to Barcelona. It's so nice to take a train where we can wheel our bikes and bags on and not need to do any planning.

While cramming ourselves into an elevator, with barely any room left, this one guy threw himself into the middle of the bikes with his big roller bag. He was so excited to tell us that he saw us biking in Ben Carlo which was days ago. Apparently he was driving and let us pass. He remembered David very well but he couldn’t see me with all my gear.

Barcelona is so great! Such a wonderful biking city! They have biking lanes, as opposed to Madrid. We spent only 1.5 days walking around, biking around and eating.

David’s favorite part of Barcelona were the streets. All of the new part of the city was a grid with wide tree lined streets and tall buildings. The shade of the buildings and trees made it cool and inviting. Then every intersection had set-back beveled corners, so the buildings had a focus for their facades, and the space opened up, but the corners were filled with plaza seating or parking, so the space was cozy, not a traffic zoo. Also cycle tracks everywhere.

Sarah wasn’t impressed with the sangria, but boy, were they strong. She enjoyed our two and a half hour long tour. We learned about the history of Barcelona, a little of the current politics, and Gaudi. The modernist design of the buildings was definitely striking and memorable, if not a little unsettling.

We went on a funicular to get to a city view where the 1992 Olympics high dive and water polo took place. See picture below. We happened to catch a high school water polo game. Both of us are not huge sports watchers, but we stayed fascinated by the game. Quite horrifying, one guy got scratched and blood gushing from his eye. Quite violent, but in all other aspects, lower risks for injury. The next day, while doing laundry in our hostel, we saw one of the polo teams emerge from their rooms! How wild that we stayed at the same hostel in such a massive city.

It was a very touristed city, and that made it feel a little weird. You know things are tough when there are signs everywhere on light posts in English that say "Fines of €3.000 for anti-social behavior." But even the parts that were "touristed" were not "touristy". The beach towns were more touristy. One of my other favorite parts was walking up to a viewpoint on a hill and walking through apartment plazas and side streets and seeing random bars in residential area packed, or smelling people's dinners wafting out of windows. There are some non-touristed parts. I dream that every city can have a part as beautiful and compelling and maybe they don't need to all come to Barcelona.

**order of photos is scattered but we are trying to fix it.