Destinations: Barcelona con bebe Destinations: Barcelona con bebe

Known for hip nightlife, the city is surprisingly friendly for travelers with tots.

By Andrea Gemmet
Almanac Staff Writer

Our 1-year-old daughter peered into the hand of the cafe's proprietress, her eyes wide. Pleased that the baby had spent long minutes admiring her chicken-themed Easter display in the cafe's window, the kind woman disappeared inside for minute and reappeared bearing a tiny yellow chick made of pom-poms. Aurelia gave it a poke before ecstatically claiming it, and both faces crinkled into smiles.

There are two constants no matter where you travel -- every big city's tourist attractions will be plagued by annoying silver-painted people pretending to be statues, and everyone is charmed by a cute baby.

Barcelona, the hip capital of Spain's Catalunya region, is known for its architecture, gourmet cuisine and thriving nightlife. It's generally not a top destination for family travelers, but since we were there to visit friends, we decided to discover what Barcelona had to offer visitors who are too small to appreciate the smoky bars, thumping nightclubs and eye-popping architecture.

There are a lot of things to worry about when traveling abroad with a small child, and on our recent week-long trip to Barcelona, less than a month after terrorists bombed the Madrid train station, killing almost 200 people, my husband and I had a few more things to worry about. Irate voters toppled the government and huge protests called for an end to involvement in the Iraq war.

Fortunately for us, anti-American sentiment was focused on the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, not on individual Americans schlepping a squirmy toddler around town.

While some baby-friendly amenities are scarce, like diaper changing stations in restrooms, we found a warm reception nearly everywhere we went in Barcelona, from fancy restaurants to historic house tours. Our daughter was almost universally greeted with compliments and smiles, and only once did a maitre d' balk at accommodating us and our stroller -- and he was quickly overruled by the restaurant's friendly young hostess.

Barcelona is an extremely walkable city. With a sturdy umbrella stroller and a very good map, we explored the city largely on foot. For longer treks, we used the Metro, Barcelona's excellent subway system, and only relied on taxis when we were in a rush. Be forewarned: many of the smaller subway stations lack working elevators and escalators, meaning strollers have to be lugged up and down stairs.

One of the trip's highlights was the Barcelona Zoo, a beautifully designed modern zoo with an extensive primate habitat that is home to the world's only known albino gorilla, Snowflake.

On our way to the zoo, we passed through the monumental brick Arc del Triomf on our way to the Parc de la Ciutadella, where the zoo is located. Although it is clearly a popular spot to bring children, the park's gravel paths are like an endurance test for strollers, separating the flimsy from the sturdy.

Once inside the zoo, the paved pathways were a relief. The zoo has all of the amenities typical of family destinations -- diaper changing facilities, vending machines selling juice boxes, and snack bars selling greasy hamburgers. Of course, being in Spain, we opted for the cafe that served paella and fideua , a tasty regional dish made of vermicelli noodles cooked in seafood stock, which we ate from a table overlooking the giraffes and hippos in the African savannah habitat.

Our baby turned into a real fideua aficionado, slurping up the skinny noodles with or without the garlicky allioli sauce that accompanies it.

Also a big hit were the enormous fountains at the Placa de Catalunya, which forms one end of Las Ramblas, the famous, mile-long pedestrian promenade that cuts through the city and ends at Barcelona's harbor.

If you're too hurried or exhausted to search for the neighborhood grocery store, the massive El Corte Ingles department store at the Placa de Catalunya sells diapers, baby food and toiletries on its ground floor, and its basement holds a large supermarket.

Frequented by tourists, locals, pickpockets, buskers and sidewalk vendors, Las Ramblas is the site of an endless parade of humanity morning, noon and night, and there are a number of attractions along the way.

Parents of both picky eaters and omnivorous gourmands should check out the Boqueria covered market, an excellent spot to pick up picnic fixings or snacks, if the sheer amount of food selection doesn't send you into sensory overload. It's crowded, and the best spot for a tot is in a backpack carrier, on a parent's shoulders, or strapped in a stroller.

The noisy bird market on Las Ramblas is nearby, with vendors hawking an assortment of little critters in cages, from chinchillas to parakeets. We took a considerable pause in our strolls whenever we came to it, and had to pry Aurelia away from the animals when it was time to go. For anyone sensitive to animals rights, it's slightly more depressing than a pet store, but toddlers are immune to such concerns and are likely to enjoy the experience immensely.

Las Ramblas ends at the imposing monument to Christopher Columbus, just across from a large pier called the Moll d'Espanya. Take the Rambla del Mar, a pedestrian pier with a beautifully designed swinging drawbridge in the middle, to the Moll d'Espanya. It is a wonderful walk, with plenty of boats and fish to gawk at. It delivers you to Maremagnum, a large shopping mall that has the only other baby feeding/changing room we came across. Unfortunately, it was locked up tight, so our baby had to endure an al fresco diaper change on a bench.

The Moll d'Espanya is also home to the city's Aquarium and an IMAX movie theater.

Nearby, on the Moll de Barcelona and Moll Nou, you can get a bird's-eye view of the harbor by crowding into one of the suspended gondolas of the Teleferic that travel along a high cable to the nearby mountain park of Montjuic. It's a beautiful ride, but lines to get on board can be long, and the endpoint on Montjuic holds steep terrain and not much in the way of sidewalks. A funicular and any number of buses serve the park as well, and only overachievers should attempt to explore the entire place on foot.

Besides superb views and the stadium built for the 1992 Olympic Games, Montjuic holds several museums, including the Castell de Montjuic military museum, the Fundacio Joan Miro and medieval art at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. It's also home to the Poble Espanyol, sort of a Spanish version of Disney's California Adventure with examples of regional architecture, crafts and foods from the entire country.

Even the most tractable child would have a meltdown before every last attraction in Montjuic could be seen in a day, so it's wise to limit the scope of your visit.

Barcelona's most popular attraction is probably the unfinished Sagrada Familia cathedral, designed by architect and native son Antoni Gaudi. Crowded with tourists, it's not a terribly fun experience for small children unless they are enthralled by construction sites -- it's extremely unfinished, despite having been under construction for more than 100 years.

On the bright side, it's one of the few cathedrals that come equipped with vending machines for snacks and drinks. The view from the top is said to be spectacular, but we gave it a pass when we found out that the elevator only takes you part of the way, with a knee-trembling climb up a narrow staircase to get to the top.

We weren't so well-informed when it came to our visit to Parc Guell, another Gaudi-designed landmark. We took the metro to the Vallcarca stop, entering at the rear of the park. Knee-trembling doesn't begin to describe the steep ascent to the park, which reminded me of the climb from North Beach up to the base of Coit Tower -- at least until we hit the multiple flights of stairs, at which point there was no comparison.

There were escalators for the top half of the climb, but every other one was out of order. Aurelia had to be carried aloft in her stroller, but even the unburdened adults in our party were winded when we finally reached the top.

Not that Parc Guell isn't worth a visit. The design is both fanciful and naturalistic, with undulating mosaic benches on the top level forming a scenic overlook of the city and harbor, and a broad, unpaved plaza with plenty of room for people-watching and running around. Below it, adorned with more mosaics is the "Hall of 100 Columns," and below that, a double staircase surrounding a burbling fountain overseen by a big mosaic lizard. On the street just outside we found a long line of idling taxi cabs waiting to collect exhausted visitors -- clearly, it would have been the better entrance to have used.

We did burn a lot of calories huffing and puffing up those steps, a condition that's easy to remedy in Barcelona. Tantalizing candy stores selling turrones , Italian gelato shops and bakeries -- you can't throw a tour book in this city without hitting one. Our favorite treat was churros dipped in thick hot chocolate, a snack that is something of a Sunday morning ritual in Barcelona. We were lucky to get a table before the after-church crowds arrived.

Traveling with a child has its headaches, but it opens up a whole new world apart from the usual tourist routine, putting you more on par with locals. Striking up a conversation is simple when you're sharing commiserating smiles with other parents who are juggling shopping bags and baby gear. The occasional inconveniences were easy to overlook, and I'm glad we got to see a side of the city that we might have missed.

Barcelona: Tips for the traveler

Where to stay: Apartment rentals are ideal for families, and there are a plethora of options available on the Internet. We stayed at an excellent location near the University of Barcelona, a lively, centrally located neighborhood near several metro stops and a short walk from the Placa de Catalunya at the top of Las Ramblas. We found it through www.spain-holiday.com.

Guides: A good overview of Barcelona is available at Frommers.com. The guidebook, "Frommer's Barcelona, Madrid and Seville" yielded good restaurant recommendations, and was generally more useful to us than the Fodor's and Rough Guide books that we also consulted. Lonely Planet also puts out a very good Barcelona guide, www.lonelyplanet.com.

Maps: A detailed map is essential for getting around, as most streets are erratically marked with small, hard-to-read plaques placed high on the sides of buildings. We used the Knopf CityMap Guide to Barcelona, www.aaknopf.com.

Getting there: Even children under age 2 traveling on a parent's lap require a ticket for international air travel, although the cost is usually fairly minimal and varies by airline. Our great discovery was that the center-row bulkhead seats on Air France can be outfitted with bassinets that clamp onto the wall. Not only was it great for snoozing, but, when awake, our baby enjoyed surveying the rest of the airplane from her balcony-like perch.

Language: The official language in Barcelona is Catalan, although almost everyone speaks Spanish, and quite a few English speakers work at most popular tourist attractions.

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