I had the pleasure of tagging along with a teacher training tour to Barcelona over President's Day Weekend in 2016. It was my second time going as an experienced EF Group Leader and my first time in Spain. It was a bit of a journey getting there but a stop at a Tapas restaurant reenergized me.
Barcelona was a wonderful city with gorgeous architecture by Gaudi, beautiful parks for bike rides and plenty of food and drink. It was a unique trip because the teachers were almost exclusively from southern California, so it was really fun to meet a bunch of local teachers that were excited about traveling with students. To add to such a great weekend, we capped it off with the Barcelona game. I liked it so much that my next trip with my students has a stop in Barcelona.
La Sagrada Familia is one of the crowning architectural achievements of Spain and really the world. Taken over by visionary architect Gaudi in 1883, he worked on it for 46 years. They continued his work after World War II and have set the complete date for 2026. They had a budget of about 33 million a year. Pretty unbelievable.
The parks were magnificent, I would definitely suggest a bike ride through the city. Of course we were lucky to see the game, but think about trying to tour Barcelona stadium with your students, even if they are playing. In the game we saw, Messi scored, Neymar scored and Suarez got a hatrick. What a game, they won 6-0.
