Spending New Year in Barcelona, the beautiful capital city of Catalonia, wasn’t something I ever thought I’d be doing at the start of the year. I’ve always thought of New Years Eve as a huge anticlimax so instead of staying cynical for 2015, it was time to take action. Vicky, one of my Contiki loves, suggested spending the New Year together and after looking at a lot of different city venues, we went ahead and booked a couple of days in Barcelona starting on New Years Eve.
The official New Year celebration in Barcelona takes place at the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc where there is music, a light show as the fountain sways and music, all finished off with a spectacular fireworks display! It’s completely free to attend so we decided to go along and experience a truly Spanish new year.
We arrived early to find crowds of people all enjoying the music, spending time with friends and generally being excited to welcome 2016 in style. The entertainment was…a little odd at times, it has to be said. Talking and dancing cartoon helmets on the screens were one of the stranger parts – we later realised these were modelled on the rooftop sculptures of Gaudi’s La Pedrera – but there was dancing, drumming and a beautiful fountain display.
When the countdown to midnight began, everybody around us began eating the twelve grapes that are said to bring good luck and 2016 began watching a firework display with one of my best friends. Perfect! Then, we fought our way through the crowds towards Plaça d’Espanya where we quickly realised we didn’t know the way to our next destination. After much searching for the address and asking a few locals for help, we finally found the venue to one of the best New Year parties, Poble Espanyol, at 1am.
A brilliant outdoor venue and marquee, Poble Espanyol was packed with locals and tourists of all ages. The combination of dance and pop music alongside local songs worked to keep everybody happy and we got straight down to the serious business of dancing. The only thing we disliked? The sheer amount of guys approaching us in quite a forceful way. Anybody else instantly resort to the pretending to be a couple in this situation?
Finally, after more than 24 hours awake from catching our super early flight, we stumbled (quite literally with crazily painful feet) back to our hostel tucked away on La Rambla where a cheesy hot dog was waiting as a pre-bed snack…
New Year 2015? A roaring success. If you’re thinking of spending New Year in Barcelona, I’d highly recommend checking out Poble Espanyol as a much more exciting alternative to a standard club night.
How did you spend New Years Eve?
Laura x
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