Barcelona with babies

[LetThemEatCake]

what do you reckon? any advice or recommendations? Travel? Child-friendly hotels? places to go?

DD is 2, DS is 8 months.

We went to Paris for a weekend at the end of May, which went so well that I am keen to venture abroad again ...

TIA

Not sure about child/baby friendly as when i went was with a group of girls, but would definitely recommend the Hotel Princess in the Forum area of the city. Clean, modern and I think you can get quite good deals if you hunt around so should be affordable.

www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g187497-d505238-Reviews-Barcelona_Princess_Hotel-Barcelona_Cataloni a.html

The underground station is close by and takes you direct to the touristy bits round Las Ramblas and the harbour area. (Warning - be really careful about your valubles in these areas as loads of pickpockets , and so easy to be distracted and gets really busy so keep your toddler close!) Small shopping centre adj the hotel and restaurants for all the essentials. Small roof top pool, and quite near the beach too.

Barcelona zoo if worth a 1/2 day, and La Segrada Famillia and the Park Güell for all things Gaudi. So much to do its hard to list everything - it is a really nice city.

We went last year when DD was 3 and DS 10 months.
We didnt find it child friendly at all. No restaurants or cafes we went to had high chairs or any child menus and we felt as if children werent catered for at all. We werent being fussy either but a highchair wouldve been nice to have at least been able to feed ds.

There was also a limited amount of activities for us to do.

We went to barcelona when DD was 13 months and found that as long as you didn't expect high chair, children's menu and wanting to eat at 6:00pm, the Spanish were child friendly....

The Spanish eat quite late in the evening, so would bring DD for tapas mid evening. They would bring something for the baby - and we'd go with the flow. Um, anchovies, olives etc.

DD loved the street performers.

I went with one baby when he was about 4 months old, so he was in the sling all the time and it was really useful - we didnt need a baby seat, so didnt have the issue of asking. We found the whole late-dinner thing a right hassle though - nothing opens till after 8:30, well past baby's bedtime, so he was always crying and dinners were a real problem. Wont be going to a Spanish city for quite some time now, it is not worth it for the dinners thing. Unless you eat in, and then that's your whole evening spent trapped in the hotel..

The aquarium is great! The spanish are very child friendly in general I've found

We wnt earlier this year and tbh I didn't enjoy it - ds was 6 mo and I just found hotels and restaurants were too restrictive for all of us. We came home really knackered! Made me realise that ds needs space to move around (esp now) when we go away and not to be stuck in his buggy all day (very few green spaces in the city centre). The opening hours were all wrong for us and I found restaurants child-tolerant rather than friendly.
But if your Paris city break went well you probably have solutions to all of this!

wow - we loved barcelona with our toddler - we've been three times and he's only two! Barceloneta beach area is great - cafes and restaurants right on a lovely beach. there are lots of little parks in street corners - you have to look out for them.
Montjuic - big open space to run round it, and really recommoend Park Guell - again, lots of space and things to clmb. We'd get him to burn off as much energy as possible in the day, so he'd sit happily for dinner - there aren't many highchairs but babies are welcome everywhere. We got taxis absolutely everywhere - they were cheap and solved the issue of metro and buggies.