Read more about Barcelona.
Though the Barcelona Metro should be your primary transport choice in the city, for your first day I recommend a hop-on-hop-off sightseeing tour bus to help you get your bearings: Barcelona Sightseeing Tour Bus (book direct)
The metro in Barcelona is open until midnight from Sunday to Thursday, until 2am on Friday and through the night on Saturday.
One of the most important things to get your head around is the various tickets available. Choosing the right ticket is essential to taking full advantage of the low prices of the Barcelona Metro.
Note that the Barcelona Metro (and the train from the airport) are both free with the Barcelona Card (book direct).
The options available to you are:
- Single ticket (Price: 1.20€) The most expensive ticket and not worth buying unless you really only plan on making one journey. Worth buying for your journey to the airport, when your other ticket has run out.
- T-10 Ten Journeys (Price 6.65€) Much cheaper than buying individual tickets, each journey works out at 66.5c, which is a fraction over half price! More than one person can use the ticket at the same time too - you can pass the ticket back and your companion can pass it through the machine too. A 'journey' lasts 1h15m, so you can change metros as many times as you want in that time and can even go onto a bus. Remember to validate your ticket each time in the machine provided. Click on the picture on this page and then click 'next' to see what a validating machine on the bus looks like.
- T-DIA (Price 5.00€) Although cheaper still than the ten-journey ticket, are you really going to travel enough times in one day to make it worth while? You'll only have to buy another the next day, whereas the ten-journeys ticket can be used over several days.
- TRAVELCARD 2 DAYS (9.20€) Cheaper again, but again requires you to be using the metro a lot before it become worth while.
- TRAVELCARD 3 DAYS (13.20€) See above.
- T-MES (42.75€) Monthly ticket, unlimited use. This is the equivalent to six-and-a-half ten-journey tickets, or 65 journeys. Only likely to be useful if you are spending two or more weeks in Barcelona. And even then you need to be using the metro several times a day.
- T-50/30 (27.55€) Fifty journeys in thirty days. Again, only suitable for people who are going to be in Barcelona for at least two weeks.
So, really, the T-10 is the only ticket worth buying. If you come to your last day and have a busy day ahead, buy the T-DIA, and if you come to your last journey, get a single ticket. But come on guys, use the metro. No more expensive taxis all the time! The Barcelona Metro is cheap and will get you to your destination so much quicker, allowing you more time to explore new areas of the city. Go on now, don't be scared, try it!
