Barcelona - Intro

First a word of warning:

IF PLANNING TO GO TO SPAIN, CHECK FIRST FOR FIESTAS

The first time I planned an independent travel holiday to Spain, I found myself in the middle of a big fiesta in Grenada, making it difficult to find a room, get into a restaurant or even just to force my way through the crowds of young people, determined to sink more drinks than the average off duty train crew.

I made the same mistake on planning my mum’s birthday trip to Barcelona.  After booking the flights and the hotel, I discovered that the last two days of the trip coincided with La Mercé holiday in Barcelona.  It would have been so much cheaper to have travelled the week before – each of the last two days hotel charges exceeded the charge for the first three days in total.

Next time, I will do all my research and if anyone knows a website which lists all the Spanish Fiestas, their dates and the cities affected, please let me know.
 

As well as kicking myself for not doing all my research before booking the trip, I felt decidedly uneasy in the days before setting off.  I had booked the flight and hotel on the internet and there is always the worry that someone would say that they had no record of a booking.  I still much prefer the old-fashioned method of talking to a real person.  I had gone back into the site in August to check that they had our passport details as required and was stunned to see that my mum and I were both in the system as being male.  I cannot believe that I had entered that information and worried that it might it might revert back to male after I changed it and logged out, making our flights invalid.  I don’t think I had ever worried more about a holiday.