Exploring Barcelona with the Barcelona Card Family
*We were provided with this experience for the purpose of this post however all opinions are my own.
During our break in Barcelona we made use of the Barcelona Card Family from Visit Barcelona for a lot of our activities and transport. It made our break in Barcelona really stress free – and saved us so much money too!
What is the Barcelona Card Family?
Visit Barcelona offer a whole range of Barcelona Card options and Barcelona Card Family is the card tailored to family travel. For one initial cost it gives you access to so many of Barcelona’s top family attractions as well as free travel on the Barcelona public transport system for a period of 72, 96 or 120 hours.
What is included with the Barcelona Card Family?
The Barcelona Card Family includes entry to the following attractions:
- Wax Museum.
- L’Aquàrium de Barcelona.
- Poble Espanyol.
- Parc d’Atraccions del Tibidabo (Amusement Park).
- Sant Pau Recinte Modernista.
- Zoo de Barcelona.
- Cosmocaixa (Science Museum).
- Chocolate museum.
- Las Golondrinas (Barcelona Port and Litoral 60’route).
- Mirador de Colón.
What public transport is included with the Barcelona Card Family?
The Barcelona Card Family includes free travel on the Metro, bus (TMB), urban railway (FGC, Zone 1), Montjuïc funicular, tram (TRAM), and regional railway (Rodalies de Catalunya, Zone 1) as well as the Metro and train to and from Barcelona Airport and suburban rail services (Cercanías/Rodalies) operated by Renfe in zone 1.
Where can you collect the Barcelona Card Family?
We collected our Barcelona Card Family from the Tourist Information Office at Plaça de Catalunya but you can also collect the cards from many other tourist information points across the city:
- Airport, Terminal T1 and T2
- Pl. Catalunya
- Sagrada Familia tourist information booth
- Mirador de Colom (Columbus Monument)
How we used our Barcelona Card Family
We were in Barcelona for four days and used our Barcelona Card Family almost constantly throughout the trip. It saved the children’s tired legs when we could just jump on the Metro and it gave us access to so many different attractions – some of which we wouldn’t have visited without it.
Our first visit was to Sant Pau Recinte Modernista, a beautiful hospital with such incredible architecture. It was wonderful to explore the buildings and see the beautiful rooms as they would have been during the hospitals use – although it only closed in 2009.
We also went on the Las Golondrinas Barcelona Port and Litoral 60′ route tour. It gave us an hour out at sea, seeing Barcelona from a completely new perspective and even showing us some of the cruise ships docked in Barcelona too.
After the boat trip we went to L’Aquàrium de Barcelona which was one of the best aquariums we have ever been to. The underwater tunnels are amazing and there were just so many tanks full of exciting creatures to see.
We spent a whole day at Parc d’Atraccions del Tibidabo and loved that the Barcelona Card Family gave us full access to the park as well as the journey on the Funicular railway to and from the theme park too.
The theme park was amazing – set high on a mountain with fantastic views of Barcelona below. The rides are a mix of classic, traditional favourites and more modern ones too. It’s one of the oldest theme parks in the world and definitely worth visiting if you’re ever in Barcelona.
And on our last day in Barcelona we went up Mirador de Colón, seeing fantastic views of the city and coast before heading to Zoo de Barcelona for such a lovely day out.
The zoo is a must for anyone visiting the city. It’s full of all our favourite animals – lions, tigers and bears as well as elephants, rhinos and even orangutans. But the site is really open, with enclosures that feel really roomy and allow you to get up close to the animals. We really loved the zoo and would definitely go back.
We also squeezed in a visit to the Wax Museum which was definitely something different and a nice way to pass an hour or so. It has fantastic wax models of so many famous people from music, film, history, sport and more.
The only places we didn’t manage to get to with the Barcelona Card Family were Poble Espanyol, the Cosmocaixa Science Museum and the Chocolate museum.
How much can you save using the Barcelona Card Family?
Barcelona Card Family costs from 75EUR per card for adults for the 3 day/72 hour option and less for children. Our cards were the 4 day/96 hour option and cost 300EUR for the 4 cards.
If we’d paid the entrance fee for all of the attractions we visited using the cards, it would have cost a total of 472EUR.
As you can see, we saved 172EUR on the attractions we visited, without taking into consideration all the Metro and bus journeys we also went on. The travel cards that are included in the Barcelona Card Family would usually cost 31EUR each for 4 days of travel, a total of 124EUR for the 4 of us.
It’s safe to say that the Barcelona Card Family saved us a lot of money throughout our city break and was well worth the investment.
Thoughts on the Barcelona Card Family
We absolutely loved using the Barcelona Card Family. It couldn’t have been easier to use and included nearly all of the attractions we wanted to visit during our time in Barcelona.
We hadn’t thought of using the Barcelona public transport system but having the Barcelona Card Family meant we could use public transport whenever we wanted – and we ended up using it for so many journeys over the four days we were in Barcelona. This made our whole city break so much smoother and stress free too. We could jump on and off the Metro or bus whenever we wanted.
The Barcelona Card Family saved us so much money. It’s a service we would definitely use again – and it’s inspired us to look for similar cards in other cities in the future too.
You can find out more about the Barcelona Cards on offer over on the Visit Barcelona website.
