Navigating the Metro in Barcelona
Barcelona is one of the biggest cities in Europe and the metro is without a doubt the most efficient and fastest mode of transportation to get you from point A to point B around the city. Only problem is trying to figure out how to use it.
I was a little skeptical to use the metro when I first arrived in January because of a family vacation my family and I took a few years back. We were on a cruise that stopped in Barcelona and we took the metro to visit La Sagrada Familia, which is in the heart of the city far from the port area where we docked. I guess we all stuck out as tourists because my dad got pick pocketed on the metro and we ended up spending our entire day in the police station. After walking 30 minutes to class every day my first week however, I quickly realized that the metro was my best bet to get to and from class every day. I bought a 90 day unlimited metro pass that would last me a majority of my semester abroad and it covered all the spots of the city that I needed to get to during my time here. My friends and I were also lucky enough to have a metro stop walking distance away from our apartment. When we were looking for apartments that wasn’t something we took into account, so for future study abroad students I would recommend looking at your cities metro map beforehand and choosing a location close to a metro stop. We were also lucky in the sense that the two metro stops where our campuses are located are on the same L4 metro line as the Barceloneta metro stop near our apartment. This means that we don’t need to get off at multiple stops and transfer to other lines to get to our classes every day.
Our daily routine is to leave about 20-30 minutes before class starts, walk 5 minutes to the Barceloneta metro stop and depending on which of the 2 campuses our classes are at that day, get off on the right stop right near our schools. So far myself and none of my friends have gotten their things taken on the metro on their way to class, but it never hurts to always keep an eye out!
