Hi guys! It’s been a little while since I’ve been on here. If you’ve been following along you know Clayton and I moved to Los Angeles at the beginning of July. As always moving has been quite an exhausting process that’s taken a lot of time. We also decided to book a Euro trip in the midst of that process. And as I’m writing this we are also in the middle of trip to San Francisco and from here we’re leaving for Mexico! Long story short it’s been a whirl wind and I haven’t had much of a chance to update on here. But we had such a good time in Europe and obviously I wanted to share that with you guys so today’s post will be a little recap on our whole trip! I will also include a vlog version of the trip at the bottom of this post if you’d like to watch! 🙂
Spain – Barcelona & Bilbao
I will preface this by saying we’ve never really had a proper Euro-trip. We spent 48 hours in Paris once, but that doesn’t really count right? So this was a long overdue adventure we were thrilled to finally embark on. I actually have a friend who lives in Spain so we decided it was the perfect place to travel to!
We started off in Barcelona as it seemed like a fitting ‘big city’ to jet off to. We instantly fell in love with the beautiful Euro structures, culture, and overall vibe. It’s so easy to ooh and ahh at the amazing buildings, statues, and history that surrounds you in Europe. Barcelona was no different in this respect.
We decided to stay in the Las Ramblas area in an air bnb to get the authentic experience. This was a lovely little area full of surrounding shops, restaurants, and buzzing people. Apparently this is known to be a heavily pick-pocketed area but as long as you are aware you shouldn’t have a problem. We spent most of our nights here out past midnight and walked everywhere without any troubles. It’s a super cute and charming area with lots to do and see. We LOVED the food we experienced in Barcelona. I’ll indulge on a few of our favorite Barcelona restaurants below!
Flax & Kale – a health focused hip restaurant with tons of vegan options!
Feroz – decor GOALS and a perfect place for a nicer date night on vacay!
Vegan Sushi Joint – truly amazing vegan food and also a great relaxed but well done atmosphere.
Patatas Bravas – not a place but just one of our favorite Spanish dishes that you should order just about everywhere!
Bilbao
We spent a few short days in Bilbao as this is where my good friend lives. It’s a smaller town vibe than Barcelona and me and Clayton really liked that about it. It was also so great to see where and how our friend lives. Here we stayed at a hotel called Hotel Tayko. It was a super cool hotel mixing modern and historic, and it was located in a very central walkable place. The staff here was exceptionally warm and accommodating!
The quaint streets and local restaurants were so charming. We only got to spend a few short days here but we seriously loved it and would highly recommend it! We felt that we actually clicked better with this area than Barcelona just because it was a bit more quaint and charming.
We also rented a car for a day to go visit some family of mine in the French Basque country. We headed out to the tiny rural town called Saint Juste Ibarre that was tucked away in the Pyrenees Mountains. It was quite a magical experience to go visit them and see how they lived. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip!
San Sebastian
Again we only spent a few short days in San Sebastian but we quickly fell in love with the vibe here as well. It’s a beautiful little beach town that is so picturesque it doesn’t even seem real. The stunning little bay wrapped into the hillside of the gorgeous town is straight out of a story book. We stayed at Hotel Londres which is a stunning historical chic hotel, the views were AMAZING here.
The beach and the water were both very calm and enjoyable. The beach was busy during the day but everyone is very laid back and it’s a super relaxing vibe. I couldn’t believe how warm and mellow the water was too! I wish we had more time to explore here but I would totally recommend it to anyone looking to travel to Spain!
Portugal – Lisbon
Another thing we learned on this Euro trip was that we would probably do a few things differently on our next European adventure. For example, we would have liked to visit less cities but spend more time in them.
One of those cities we would love to spend a longer period of time in was Lisbon. We were only there for about 2 days but it definitely earned a special place in our hearts in that short period of time. The city itself is very similar looking to San Francisco. The hilly streets, a very similar bridge to the Golden Gate (that was apparently designed by the same guy as the Golden Gate) cable cars, etc. Here we stayed in another air bnb in the Bairro Alto area, we like to mix our experience of hotel life and real homes. The food was amazing in Lisbon. From their pastry shops to their vegan restaurants everything was SO good! The people were also super nice and welcoming here. It’s a very laid back safe feeling city from what we picked up on.
All in all it was a fantastic trip. We had SO much fun and we feel so grateful to have gone and seen these amazing parts of the world. We are really looking forward to exploring more of Europe and the rest of the world in the future. Is there anywhere you’d like to see us go? Do you like these kinds of posts? Let me know here in the comments or over on IG! And feel free to watch the vlog version of our trip down below! Talk soon! xx
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